Experimental and numerical study of melting of the phase change material tetracosane

We carry out a comparative analysis of experimental results and numerical simulations on the melting of the Phase Change Material tetracosane contained within a cube and heated from below. Simulations employ a Stefan number Ste = 0.65, Prandtl number Pr = 54, and Rayleigh number covers a range up to 10⁸. The simulations show distinct regimes of the melting process: (i) conductive regime, (ii) stable growth regime, (iii) coarsening regime, (iv) turbulent regime. We show how the solid/liquid interface easily observed in the experiment is enough to identify these regimes and so the internal state of the velocity and temperature fields.