Solidification of a Binary Solution (NH4Cl+H2O) under Shear Flow: A Numerical Study

Abstract

In the present work, the solidification behaviour of a metal analogues transparent binary solution (8 wt% of NH4Cl in H2O) under shear flow is investigated numerically. The shear flow in the mush is developed due to flow over an inclined cooling plate. The dendrites formed during solidification are fragmented under the shear flow and transported into the bulk solution. The suspended dendrites form a slurry layer in the domain. Consequently, a suitable mathematical model is considered to study the transport phenomena. In the mathematical model, the free surface of the solution is represented by the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method. The solidification process is modelled by a set of volume-averaged-single-phase mass, momentum, energy and species conservation equations. A separate equation is considered for the solid velocity based on Stokes model. The governing equations are solved based on the pressure-based semi-implicit finite volume method according to the SIMPLER algorithm using TDMA solver along with the enthalpy update scheme. Finally, the simulation predicts temperature, velocity, solid fraction and the species distributions in the computational domain. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}