Simulations of the water freezing process: numerical benchmarks

Three numerical benchmarks concerning the freezing of water in small enclosures are analysed using the commercial FLUENT code. The first case is a steady-state natural convection in a differentially heated cavity for temperatures near the freezing point. In the second case, the freezing of water in a differentially heated cavity is simulated. The third case describes a simulation of freezing water in the presence of forced convection and a free surface flow. Two finite-differences numerical codes are used to verify results of the FLUENT simulations for the natural convection and solidification in the differentially heated cavity. It is found that the simulation of water solidification requires very fine meshes and short time steps, extending the computational time to the extreme.