NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF NATURAL CONVECTION MELTING IN 2D AND 3D ENCLOSURES

Natural convection melting in 2D and 3D enclosures with a local heater is studied numerically. The present research is related to a development of effective cooling system for the electronic devices using the phase change material that is essentially important nowadays. The domain of interest includes vertical cold walls, adiabatic horizontal walls and a discrete heater of constant high temperature located on the bottom adiabatic wall. The cavity is filled with a phase change material (PCM) in solid state at the beginning of the process. During the heating from the heat source PCM is melting. Numerical solution of the present problem has been conducted using the dimensionless transformed variables such as stream function and vorticity for 2D cavity and vector potential functions and vorticity vector for 3D cavity with appropriate initial and boundary conditions. The developed numerical technique has been verified comprehensively. Obtained results have shown a potential of the used methods for 2D and 3D problems. It has been found that, melting process is more intensive in 3D case and the heat transfer rate at the heater is greater for 2D in comparison with 3D data.