laser melting problem (moving heat source)
 

Hello to everyone!

I am solving heat transfer and CFD on a metal plate using a moving laser heat source using MATLAB. I am struck somewhere and need immediate help. But before that I will tell you what my program basically does.

So, when the spot is made on the metal plate, it solves first for the temperature and liquid fraction (if liquid is formed) iteratively until the solution converges.

Then it solves for velocity and pressure by SIMPLE algorithm until convergence.

Then again the velocity values are put back into temperature code and it iteratively solves until both of them (Temperature and velocity) converges for each other.

And then I solve for VOLUME OF FLUID code to determine surface profile

In a nutshell..


1. solve for temperature and liq. fraction
2. check convergence and if not go back to step 1
3. solve for velocity and pressure using SIMPLE algo
4. check for convergence and if not go back to step 3
5. find min error of both temperature and velocity fields
6. check if error < epsilon (some value) and if not go back to step 1
7. VOF code for surface prediction

Then I advance to a new time step in which laser moves by v*dt where v is the laser speed and dt is the time step obtained from CFL condition

So, I want all your feedback on whether I should do the steps 5 and 6 or directly jump from step 4 to step 7 and advance to new time step.

Thank you!

PS: I am a new comer on this forum and want to get along as quickly as possible. :)