Andrea N. Ceretani

Simultaneous determination of two unknown thermal coefficients through a mushy zone model with an overspecified convective boundary condition

The simultaneous determination of two unknown thermal coefficients for a semi-infinite material under a phase-change process with a mushy zone according to the Solomon-Wilson-Alexiades model is considered. The material is assumed to be initially liquid at its melting temperature and it is considered that the solidification process begins due to a heat flux imposed at the fixed face. The associated free boundary value problem is overspecified with a convective boundary condition with the aim of the simultaneous determination of the temperature of the solid region, one of the two free boundaries of the mushy zone and two thermal coefficients among the latent heat by unit mass, the thermal conductivity, the mass density, the specific heat and the two coefficients that characterize the mushy zone. The another free boundary of the mushy zone, the bulk temperature and the heat flux and heat transfer coefficients at the fixed face are assumed to be known. According to the choice of the unknown thermal coefficients, fifteen phase-change problems arise. The study of all of them is presented and explicit formulae for the unknowns are given, beside necessary and sufficient conditions on data in order to obtain them. Formulae for the unknown thermal coefficients, with their corresponding restrictions on data, are summarized in a table.

Determination of One Unknown Thermal Coefficient through a Mushy Zone Model with a Convective Overspecified Boundary Condition

A semi-infinite material under a solidification process with the Solomon-Wilson-Alexiades mushy zone model with a heat flux condition at the fixed boundary is considered. The associated free boundary problem is overspecified through a convective boundary condition with the aim of the simultaneous determination of the temperature, the two free boundaries of the mushy zone and one thermal coefficient among the latent heat by unit mass, the thermal conductivity, the mass density, the specific heat, and the two coefficients that characterize the mushy zone, when the unknown thermal coefficient is supposed to be constant. Bulk temperature and coefficients which characterize the heat flux and the heat transfer at the boundary are assumed to be determined experimentally. Explicit formulae for the unknowns are given for the resulting six phase-change problems, besides necessary and sufficient conditions on data in order to obtain them. In addition, relationship between the phase-change process solved in this paper and an analogous process overspecified by a temperature boundary condition is presented, and this second problem is solved by considering a large heat transfer coefficient at the boundary in the problem with the convective boundary condition. Formulae for the unknown thermal coefficients corresponding to both problems are summarized in two tables.

Similarity solution for a two-phase one-dimensional Stefan problem with a convective boundary condition and a mushy zone model

A two-phase solidification process for a one-dimensional semi-infinite material is considered. It is assumed that it is ensued from a constant bulk temperature present in the vicinity of the fixed boundary, which it is modelled through a convective condition (Robin condition). The interface between the two phases is idealized as a mushy region and it is represented following the model of Solomon, Wilson, and Alexiades. An exact similarity solution is obtained when a restriction on data is verified, and it is analysed the relation between the problem considered here and the problem with a temperature condition at the fixed boundary. Moreover, it is proved that the solution to the problem with the convective boundary condition converges to the solution to a problem with a temperature condition when the heat transfer coefficient at the fixed boundary goes to infinity, and it is given an estimation of the difference between these two solutions. Results in this article complete and improve the ones obtained in Tarzia (Comput Appl Math 9:201–211, 1990).

Determination of two unknown thermal coefficients through an inverse one-phase fractional Stefan problem

Abstract We consider a semi-infinite one-dimensional phase-change material with two unknown constant thermal coefficients among the latent heat per unit mass, the specific heat, the mass density and the thermal conductivity. Aiming at the determination of them, we consider an inverse one-phase Stefan problem with an over-specified condition at the fixed boundary and a known evolution for the moving boundary. We assume that it is given by a sharp front and we consider a time fractional derivative of order α (0 < α < 1) in the Caputo sense to represent the temporal evolution of the temperature as well as the moving boundary. This might be interpreted as the consideration of latent-heat memory effects in the development of the phase-change process. According to the choice of the unknown thermal coefficients, six inverse fractional Stefan problems arise. For each of them, we determine necessary and sufficient conditions on data to obtain the existence and uniqueness of a solution of similarity type. Moreover, we present explicit expressions for the temperature and the unknown thermal coefficients. Finally, we show that the results for the classical statement of this problem, associated with α = 1, are obtained through the fractional model when α → 1—.

Approximation of the modified error function

In this article, we obtain explicit approximations of the modified error function introduced in Cho, Sunderland. Journal of Heat Transfer 96-2 (1974), 214-217, as part of a Stefan problem with a temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. This function depends on a parameter

Modeling peristaltic flow in vessels equipped with valves: Implications for vasomotion in bat wing venules

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Similarity solutions for thawing processes with a convective boundary condition

, which is related to the thermal conductivity in the original phase-change process. We propose a method to obtain approximations, which is based on the assumption that the modified error function admits a power series representation in

Explicit solutions for a non-classical heat conduction problem for a semi-infinite strip with a non-uniform heat source

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A note on Stefan-like models for phase-change processes in non-homogeneous media

. Accurate approximations are obtained through functions involving error and exponential functions only. For the special case in which

A note on models for anomalous phase-change processes.

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