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 greater than or similar to 4) configurations leading to well controlled heat source temperatures and long melting times are obtained For cavities of low aspect ratios (A less than or similar to 4) it is found that the source span eta is the most influential parameter. For eta less than or similar to 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.