摘要：Natural convection melting in 2D and 3D enclosures with a local heater is studied numerically. Thepresent research is related to a de velopment of effective cooling system for the electronic devices using the phasechange material that is essentially important nowadays. The domain of interest includes vertical cold walls,adiabatic horiz ontal walls and a discrete heater of constant high temperature located on the bottom adiabaticwall. The cavity is filled with a phase change material (PCM) in solid state at the beginning of the process.During the heating from the heat source PCM is melting. Numerical solution of the present problem has beenconducted using the dimensionless transformed variables such as stream function and vorticity for 2D cavity andvector potential functions and vorticity vector for 3D cavity with appropriate initial and boundary conditions.The developed numerical tec hnique has been verified comprehensively. Obtained results have shown a potentialof the used methods for 2D and 3D problems . It has been found that, melting process is more intensive in 3Dcase and the heat transfer rate at the heater is greater for 2D in comparison with 3D data.
关键词：Natural Convection ; Melting ; Numerical Analysis ; S quare and Cubical Cavities
