Experimental investigation on the melting characteristics of n-octadecane with electric field inside macrocapsule

Experiments on the melting characteristics of n-octadecane with electric field inside a cavity are carried out. The classical differentially heated cavity is considered to explore the effect of electric field on solid-liquid phase change heat transfer. The influence of the applied voltage's polarity and magnitude on the melting process of n-octadecane is investigated. The dynamic evolution of the liquid fraction and solid-liquid interface positions with melting time are reported. The velocity fields and electric current-voltage curves are also presented for understanding the physical mechanism. Results show that Coulomb force plays the central role in affecting the melting heat transfer process. The electric field would hinder or accelerate the melting process depending on the strength of electric field. When the applied voltage set to the right wall that is cold is larger than 10.0kV, the electric field would obviously accelerate the melting process. For a cavity with the length of 40.0 mm, the charge injection is hardly taken place when the maximum DC voltage of 20.0kV is applied, so the free charge carriers are mainly generated by conduction mechanism.