Development of Empirical Model for Solid Melting Process Adjacent to Immiscible Liquid

Solid melting processes adjacent to immiscible liquids can be seen in a variety of natural and industrial settings, including phase-change material systems, cryogenic cooling, and Arctic oil spills. While numerical simulations are essential for understanding and optimizing such systems, those require high computational costs since the melting process involves multi-phase interfaces, non-uniform temperature gradients, and dynamic fluid motion. The empirical models enable solid melting process simulation with low computational cost, however, measurement methods that can capture relevant quantities to solid melting process simultaneously in spatially resolved manner scarcely available. This study aims to develop a measurement method that can measure flow and temperature fields in immiscible liquid. Ice and toluene were selected as representative materials, and a simultaneous thermometry and velocimetry that can be applied to immiscible liquid is developed to capture temperature and velocity distributions in the immiscible liquid during the melting process. The developed method helps development of the empirical model for solid melting rate from measured temperature and velocity distributions in immiscible liquid. The empirical model contributes to the development of small-scale numerical simulations of solid melting process without significant increase in computational cost that can be further integrated into larger-scale simulations.