Effect of subcooling on convective melting of a particle

This paper considers convective melting of a spherical particle. The study is intended to provide understanding of how both subcooling and convection of heat and mass affect the melting process. Since part of heat transferred to the particle is used to increase its sensible energy during melting by internal heat conduction, the heat transfer rate across the melting interface determines the melting rate. The results show that subcooling of a particle affects the melting rate; therefore, if the effect of subcooling can be neglected during melting in calculating the melting rate, the Stefan number and heating rate must satisfy certain criteria that are described in this contribution. In addition, the effect of mass convection is also discussed, and found that it is significant when the Biot number is small. The predictions of the dimensionless radius are compared with experimental data, and good agreement has been obtained. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd.