Close contact melting of ice on circular cylinders

Abstract

Close contact melting of solid phase on hot circular cylinders horizontally arranged in line was studied analytically. The analytical results were compared with experiment. Momentum and energy equations were treated on the assumption that nonlinear term in momentum equation can be neglected because of low velocity in thin melted liquid layer. Functional correlation between the height of a solid phase and time during melting was obtained with the use of approximated temperature profile in the liquid layer by polynomial function inserted in integrated energy equation. The result shows that decreasing rate of the solid height is almost in inversely proportional to the 1/4-th power of the ratio of diameters. Comparison between the analysis and the experiments shows good agreement. The melting time of ices on horizontal circular cylinders was considerably shortened compared with those on flat plates.

Keywords

• close contact melting
• circular cylinder
• melting
• phase change
• heat transfer analysis
• experiment