Numerical study of Transfer by convection in a lid-driven cavity with a thin PCM layer

A numerical method to solve transfer equations in a thin phase change material (PCM) layer in contact with a solid material or a fluid is presented. This numerical method is applied to predict the heat transfer in a lid-driven cavity which one of its vertical plane walls is covered with a thin layer of PCM. The mathematical modeling and numerical method will be first presented, and then the boundary condition associated to the PCM wall is formulated in term of “Signorini boundary condition”. The numerical method proposed to solve this formulation is validated by a test case.