Analysis of melting with natural convection and volumetric radiation using lattice Boltzmann method

A unified computational framework based on the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is applied to solving the coupled heat transfer during phase change process with natural convection and volumetric radiation. A general convection-diffusion equation is introduced for a unified description of coupled heat transfer including conduction, convection and radiation in phase change media, and a corresponding unified lattice Boltzmann equation is developed. The D2Q9 model is used to solve the LBE. In order to validate the LBM for the coupled heat transfer process, three 2-D test cases of uncoupled and coupled heat transfer are examined. The computational results by LBM agree well with the benchmark solutions or other numerical solutions, which shows that the present model is of high accuracy and good flexibility to simulate coupled heat transfer in multidimensional participating medium. Then, the model is expanded to examine the problems of melting with natural convection and thermal radiation.