Unsteady conduction simulation during freezing of water in presence of nano-powders with different sizes

Increment in speed of solidification has been scrutinized in this work by means of dispersing nanomaterial. Altering the shape of container and loading additives can be assumed as effective ways for increasing performance of storage unit. The fraction (phi) and diameter (dp) of additives were assumed as variables. The main assumptions for mathematical models are ignoring convective terms and considering uniform concentration. The solutions of such unsteady form of equations have been derived based on finite element method combined with an adaptive grid. The longest freezing happens for pure water case and it takes 446. 45s. The middle magnitude of dp has the best performance and with dispersing such particles with a fraction of 0.04, the freezing time drops about 41.2 %. As dp increases, the period of freezing, firstly decreases about 19.96 % then it augments around 49.19 %. The needed time for the best case is 262.49s.

Automated summary

By dispersing nanomaterials and altering the container shape and additive properties, the speed of solidification can be increased significantly. The mathematical models show that the longest freezing time occurs for pure water, and the optimal performance is achieved with a moderate diameter and a certain fraction of added particles, resulting in a significant reduction in freezing time.