Effect of inclination on freezing in a sealed cylindrical capsule

Experiments were performed to study the heat transfer processes that occur during freezing inside of a sealed cylindrical capsule when the inclination of the capsule is varied parametrically from vertical to horizontal. The phase-change medium was 99 percent pure n-eicosane paraffin. It was found that the amount of mass that solidified during a given freezing period was insensitive to the inclination of the capsule, as was the amount of energy extracted from the capsule. Only highly localized quantities such as the local frozen layer thickness reflected the inclination of the cylinder. Parametric variations were also performed for the degree of subcooling of the capsule wall below the fusion temperature and for the degree of superheating of the liquid phase at the onset of freezing. These variations facilitated the identification of the relative importance of the latent and sensible energies to the total extracted energy.