Melting behavior of phase change materials in the presence of a non-uniform magnetic-field due to two variable magnetic sources

Abstract A uniform melting of a metal or polymer is essential for the quality of products. In a melting process, the convection flows affect the heat transfer, and result in a non-uniform melting process. The presence of a magnetic-field can control the flow and heat transfer by Lorentz and Kelvin forces. The present study aims to analyze the effect of the presence of two magnetic sources on the melting flow and heat transfer in a cavity. Here, the process of heat absorption by the PCM-filled enclosure that is exposed to two non-uniform magnetic-fields is numerically studied. The strengths of two magnetic-fields are not necessarily the same. Tracking the interface of solid and fluid portions of phase change material is performed using the deformed mesh technique. Galerkin finite element method, along with the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian is applied to solve the characteristic equations. The results show that the progress of the melting front completely depends on the intensity ratio of two non-uniform magnetic-fields γr. Besides, although the magnetic number has a slight effect on the melting, an increase in Hartman number can drastically decline the progress of the melting front.