Thermal expansion effects on the one-dimensional liquid-solid phase transition in high temperature phase change materials

Heat transfer characteristics of phase change materials (PCMs), such as the absorbed sensible and latent heat, during melting of the solid phase at constant pressure are analyzed. A model is proposed, where thermal dilation is incorporated by applying total mass conservation to materials with temperature dependent densities. A different energy-mass balance equation at the interface is obtained and shown to be a consequence of the proposed general mass conservation. Several authors have found solutions to the melting or solidification process by considering temperature dependent thermodynamic variables. In these works; however, the densities in each phase are assumed to be equal and constant. Other authors have studied the effect of having phases with different densities, but neglect the contributions of thermal dilation. To the authors knowledge, the impact of temperature dependent densities on the dynamics of the phase transition, has not been addressed. In our work, the proposed energy-mass balance equa...