The Melting Process of Ice Inside a Horizontal Cylinder: Effects of Density Anomaly

Abstract

In the present investigation heat transfer during melting of ice confined within a heated, horizontal cylinder is studied experimentally and by analysis. Because of the well-known density inversion effect of water in the proximity of the melting point of ice the first-order influence of convection flow for phase change processes becomes obvious. Depending on the inner diameter of the cylinder and on the specific temperature value Tw > 0° of the cylinder wall, quite different shapes of the melting ice body, the flow pattern, and the temperature field were predicted by numerical analysis. Also provided are local and overall heat transfer coefficients, revealing a reasonable agreement between experiments and predicted data. Computations were performed for wall temperatures in the range 4°C ≤ Tw ≤ 15°C and two inner diameters of the cylinder.