Melting Solids
 

Hi all,

I have been desperately searching for a way to model the melting of a solid, for instance plastic or polymer.
So the plastic slab, (say 1 foot by 1 foot and 1 inch thick) has a surface subjected to heat, and it correspondingly begins to melt. Also, the slab is suspended off the ground, so the dripping accumulates on the floor, and the viscosity of the melt controls it pool diameter.

Is this possible with ANSYS?? Is this too complicated? I think it can be done with finite particle, how about CFD? Im not looking for superb accuracy in the melt process, more an approximation and most importantly the accumulation of the pool.

Any help is appreciated. been researching for quite a while and turning up nothing.

Hi Philip,

I have been working for quite a while now in CAE (mainly CFD) and your question certainly isn't an easy one!

I believe FLUENT (Ansys) could offer you something, depending on the details you would need.
Maybe open source codes (OpenFOAM?) could help, if you have the time to maybe do some coding yourself?

As you can see in my profile, I work for the ESI Group since 2012. They offer CFD services in the niche areas you are talking about, both consulting and software tools.
I asked some colleagues and we believe that our CFD ACE+ tool might do the trick for you.

Sorry if this looks too marketingy for you, but the simulation you try to run is not that straight forward and as you said so yourself, there aren't many tools out there that can do the trick for you.

Feel free to contact me directly if you would like more information or discuss details.

Fluent can do this with the melting and solidification module. If I understand you correctly, you want:

1. A solid suspended in some medium (let's say ice in air)
2. The solid to melt as the temperature of the air is raised
3. The liquid from the solid to pool in a container below of the solid

This can be done, but you'd likely need to use UDFs to control solidification and melting of a substance away from a wall. I've done it simulating ice flows on a river, so I suspect you can do this as well. It will take some work to get the UDF code correct.

ComputerGuy