MULTIDIMENSIONAL PHASE CHANGE PROBLEMS BY THE DUAL-RECIPROCITY BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHOD

This article addresses the numerical analysis of nonlinear transient heat transfer with melting or solidification. An effective and simple procedure is presented for the simulation of the motion of the boundary and the transient temperature field during the phase change process. To accomplish this purpose, an iterative implicit solution algorithm has been developed by employing the dual-reciprocity boundary-element method. The dual-reciprocity boundary-element approach provided in this article is much simpler than the usual boundary-element method in applying a reciprocity principle and an available technique for dealing with the domain integral of the boundary element formulation simultaneously. In this article, attention is focused on two-dimensional melting (ablation) solidification problems for simplicity. The accuracy and effectiveness of the present analysis method have been illustrated through comparisons of the calculation results of some examples of one-phase ablation solidification problems with their known semianalytical or numerical solutions where available.