Hello all,

Has anyone here ever done a simulation of melting using the *LATENT
HEAT function? I am using abaqus CAE and I am trying to simulate the
melting of a sample indium placed on a heat flow plate.

I have created the plate instance, and the indium instance, and
created a tied contact interaction between the two touching surfaces.
In the property module, I have defined the latent heat values for
indium (2842 J/kg) and a solidus temperature of 429.75 and a liquidus
temperature of 432. The temperature of the plate is then ramped
linearly from 0 to 1000 (this done by applying a boundary condition at
the edge of the plate, and the heat flows from the edge to the centre,
and into the indium).

I was hoping to be able to detect the indium melting by monitoring the
difference between two nodes (one in the indium, one in the plate)
with time.

BUT, the indium just seems to heat up at a linear rate, and does not
appear to go through any phase change - what am I doing wrong?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Jonathan.