Measurement of heat transfer enhancement in melting of n-Octadecane under gravitational and electrohydrodynamics (EHD) forces

In this paper, a novel experimental methodology to quantify the heat transfer augmentation in melting of Octadecane under gravitational and EHD forces is presented. The developed experimental method allowed for the study of the EHD heat transfer enhancement under different parameters: electric potential, wave-form, temperature gradient and various aspect ratios. It is found that Coulomb forces are the main driving mechanism of enhancement in the melting of Octadecane and that a heat transfer augmentation up to 8.6 folds can be reached by using EHD.