A two-dimensional numerical model is presented to study the convective melting of packed bed. The packed bed here is considered to be collection of ice particles. As the fluid flows through the bed, the solid grains melt. The density difference between the fluid and solid phases causes the melting particles to float to the fluid surface. Repacking of the granular packed bed is accounted for by considering the motion of the solid grains. The computational domain is divided into two subdomains: one is the melting packed bed and the other is the fluid consisting of the supply fluid and melt. Darcy flow is considered to describe the quasi-steady state flow in the packed bed while the viscous flow is modeled in the fluid domain. The fluid movement and temperature distribution are presented. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data (Tao et al. 1998). To study the effect of gravity on the melting, the results with the absence of gravity is also discussed.
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