# Moving boundary problems for quasi-steady conduction limited melting

## TL;DR

This paper models the melting of dendritic crystals as a quasi-steady Stefan problem, deriving asymptotic results and analyzing stability, supported by numerical simulations and motivated by microgravity experiments.

## Contribution

It extends previous asymptotic results for crystal melting, incorporates surface tension effects, and models non-monotonic aspect ratio behavior observed in experiments.

## Key findings

- Asymptotic results for complete melting derived using Baiocchi transform.
- Numerical level set simulations support theoretical predictions.
- Model reproduces experimentally observed non-monotonic aspect ratio changes.

## Abstract

The problem of melting a crystal dendrite is modelled as a quasi-steady Stefan problem. By employing the Baiocchi transform, asymptotic results are derived in the limit that the crystal melts completely, extending previous results that hold for a special class of initial and boundary conditions. These new results, together with predictions for whether the crystal pinches off and breaks into two, are supported by numerical calculations using the level set method. The effects of surface tension are subsequently considered, leading to a canonical problem for near-complete-melting which is studied in linear stability terms and then solved numerically. Our study is motivated in part by experiments undertaken as part of the Isothermal Dendritic Growth Experiment, in which dendritic crystals of pivalic acid were melted in a microgravity environment: these crystals were found to be prolate spheroidal in shape, with an aspect ratio initially increasing with time then rather abruptly decreasing to unity. By including a kinetic undercooling-type boundary condition in addition to surface tension, our model suggests the aspect ratio of a melting crystal can reproduce the same non-monotonic behaviour as that which was observed experimentally.