NUMERICAL COMPUTATION USING FINITE ELEMENTS FOR THE MOVING INTERFACE IN HEAT TRANSFER PROBLEMS WITH PHASE TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

Abstract A numerical method involving finite elements is presented for the solution of multidimensional problems of heat transfer with phase transformation. Specific to the method is that both the energy equation in the media and the energy equation on the change of phase interface are regarded as independent governing equations which, when solved through the use of a finite-element formulation, yield the temperature distribution in the media as well as the continuous displacement of the interface. Specific examples illustrate the ability of the method to handle problems with arbitrary boundary conditions which result in irregular two-dimensional shapes of the change of phase interface.