Modelling liquid–solid phase changes with melt convection

Abstract

Abstract Methods are described for modelling of phase change processes using the finite element method to simulate freezing and melting including convection in the melt. Evaluation of several enthalply/specific heat methods and time marching schemes is also included. Suppression of velocities in the solid region is described, and example problems are given. Comparison is made to simulations performed by other researchers using finite difference methods. Substantially different results were found for one of these problems, and this result is shown to be caused by numerical problems in the earlier work.