Heating/melting of a semitransparent particle including radiation effects

The effect of internal absorption and emission of radiation on the heating and melting of a semitransparent solid particle has been theoretically studied by characterizing the local radiative transfer inside the particle. Different radiative models affecting the heating and melting processes are discussed in the paper. The study reveals that the melting rate of a particle is significantly enhanced by the internal absorption of radiation. For small particles, the interior temperature distributions in the solid phase are rather uniform throughout the melting process. From the numerical results obtained it is evident that the uniform volumetric absorption and emission of radiation model may be an acceptable approach for evaluating the melting rate of a spherical semitransparent particle if the computation time is of major concern.