Multiphysics simulation of infrared signature of an ice cube

Abstract

This paper presents numerical methodologies to simulate the Infrared (IR) signature of an ice cube. The ice was frozen in a cold environment (-28°C) and allowed to have uniform temperature throughout. It was then taken out and allowed to warm to room temperature by means of natural convection. A 3D transient heat equation was solved using three different methodologies. In the first attempt, a finite difference method was used to discretize the heat equation and solved using the Forward-Time Central-Space (FTCS) method in MATLAB® software. Then the same problem was modelled using the spectral method where the domain is non-linearly discretized for the appropriate solution. In the third case, the problem was modelled in ANSYS® Multiphysics software. The results obtained from all methodologies were found to be in close agreement.