Melting around a migrating heat source

The problem of melting around a migrating heat source which arises in applications such as nuclear technology, geophysics and materials processing was studied. Experiments were performed with horizontal cylindrical heat sources (with either constant surface temperature or constant surface heat flux) which were designed to descend while melting the phase-change material surrounding it. The experiments with n-octadecane provided phenomenological understanding as well as quantitative data on the flow field and melting around the descending source. Important transport mechanisms were identified and the domain and extent of their influence were investigated. Approximate analytical and numerical solution methods were developed based on realistic models inferred from the experiments. Conduction was found to be the dominant heat transfer mechanism around the lower stagnation point of the source where the source and the solid are separated by a thin melt layer.