Numerical Simulation of Rotating Vertical Bridgman Growth

The present work is proposed a numerical parametric study of heat and mass transfer in a rotating vertical cylinder during the solidification of a binary metallic alloy. The aim of this paper is to present an enthalpy formulation based on the fixed grid methodology for the numerical solution of convective-diffusion during the phase change in the case of the steady crucible rotation. The extended Darcy model including the time derivative and Coriolis terms was applied as momentum equation. It was found that the buoyancy driven flow and solute distribution can be affected significantly by the rotating cylinder. The problem is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the conservation laws of energy and solute. The resulting system was discretized by the control volume method and solved by the SIMPLER algorithm proposed by Patankar. A computer code was developed and validated by comparison with previous studies. It can be observed that the forced convection introduced by rotation, dramatically changes the flow and solute distribution at the interface (liquid-mushy zone). The effect of Reynolds number on the Nusselt number, flow and solute distribution is presented and discussed.