Melting from heat sources flush mounted on a conducting vertical wall

A numerical study is conducted for natural convection dominated melting inside discretely heated rectangular enclosures. This study finds applications in the design and operation of thermal energy storage units and the cooling of electric equipment. Results show the benefits of discrete heating over uniform heating for optimizing the melting process. For enclosures of high aspect ratios (A ∼> 4), configurations leading to well controlled heat source temperatures and long melting times are obtained. For cavities of low aspect ratios (A ∼< 4), it is found that the source span η is the most influential parameter. For η ∼ < 0.45, the melting times are shorter and the heat source temperatures remain equal and moderate during the entire melting process. A map for determining the cavity size and the source distribution that optimizes the melting process is presented.