Heat Transfer at Convective Solid Melting in Fixed Bed

A method to determine experimentally the melting rate, rm, and the heat transfer coefficients, αv (W/(mK)), at convective melting in a fixed bed of particles under adiabatic regime is established in this paper. The method lies in the determining of the melting rate by measuring the fixed bed height in time. Experimental values of rm, α and α v were determined using cylindrical particles of ice (d = 6.8 mm, h = 5.5 mm) and, as a melting agent, aqueous NaCl solution with a temperature of 283 K at different values of the liquid flow rate (11.63·10, 28.83·10, 38.83·10 m/s). Our experimental results were compared with those existing in literature being noticed a good agreement for Re values higher than 50. Keywords—Convective melting, fixed bed, packed bed, heat transfer, ice melting.