Melting of a Solid Sphere Under Forced and Mixed Convection: Flow Characteristics

Abstract

An experimental investigation on flow around a melting ice sphere in horizontally flowing water is conducted. The flow field is measured quantitatively using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. The distributions of velocity, streamline, and z-component of rotation vector around the ice sphere are obtained for different upstream velocities and temperatures. General flow characteristics around the melting ice sphere and effects of velocity and temperature are analyzed. The visualization of melting of a dyed ice sphere is also conducted to investigate the motion of the melt, its mixing with mainstream, and the separation of the boundary layer. Comparisons with the flow around a non-melting ball are made to investigate the effect of melting on the flow boundary layer. The original experimental results are published to serve as benchmark data for numerical model development.