Freezing around a vertical cylinder immersed in porous media incorporating the natural convection effect

The present paper analyses the freezing heat transfer on a cold cylinder immersed in a superheated liquid-saturated porous medium. The main emphasis of this paper is to clarify the effect of natural convection in the liquid phase on the freezing process. A mathematical model was developed, based on several reasonable assumptions for fluid flow in a liquid phase. The governing equations were numerically solved. Numerical results were reported for the thickness distribution of the frozen layer and the heat transfer coefficients at the cold wall and interface. The influences of various parameters such as Rayleigh number, liquid superheat, Stefan number and the dimensionless radius of a cylinder were demonstrated.