Numerical Simulation of Ice Melting Using the Finite Volume Method

Abstract

The Aim of this paper is to investigate numerically the simulation of ice melting in one and two dimension using the cell-centered finite volume method. The mathematical model is based on the heat conduction equation associated with a fixed grid, latent heat source approach. The fully implicit time scheme is selected to represent the time discretization. The ice conductivity is chosen to be the value of the approximated conductivity at the interface between adjacent ice and water control volumes. The predicted temperature distribution, percentage melt fraction, interface location and its velocity is compared with those obtained from the exact analytical solution. A good agreement is obtained when comparing the numerical results of one dimensional temperature distribution with the analytical results.