Numerical Prediction of Multicellular Melt Flow During Natural Convection-Dominated Melting

Numerical solutions to the convection-dominated melting in a rectangular cavity are presented, with particular attention given to the multicellular flows in the melt. The process of phase change is modeled by the source-based method, where the absorption and evolution of the latent heat is treated as a source term of the enthalpy equation on the basis of a single-domain (or fixed-grid) concept. The porous medium model is introduced for the simulation of melt convection with the fixed-grid approach. At the earlier stage of the melting, the melt region is quite similar to cavities with high aspect ratio, where the multicellular natural convection appears. The formation and evolution of the multiple flow cells and the heat transfer during phase change are numerically investigated. Also, numerical aspects for the prediction of the detailed flow structure in the melt are discussed. (Author)