An Experimental Study on Melting Process of Ice Containing Conductive Solids

Abstract

In this study, the melting prosess of ice containing heat-conductive solids such as a copper lattice metal or a porous aluminum is investigated by measuring the melting rate, the heat flux flowing into ice and the temperature distribution of melted water. Experiments were performed for four melting modes, namely, (A) melting from top and (B) melting from bottom by brine at about 20°C, and (C)melting from top and (D) melting from bottom by brine at about 40°C. In the case of lattice metal, the melting process was affected by the natural convection for modes (A), (B) and (C) because the lattice size was large, but it was nearly unaffected in the case of mode (D). In the case of porous aluminum, natural convection was not observed for any of the melting modes in the present experiment because the cell size was small and the melting process was extremely dependent on heat conduction.