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A note on the dissolution of spherical crystals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2007

Luis A. Herraiz
Affiliation:
Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Facultad de Matemáticas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Miguel A. Herrero
Affiliation:
Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Facultad de Matemáticas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Juan J. L. Velázquez
Affiliation:
Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Facultad de Matemáticas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Abstract

We consider here the radial Stefan problem with Gibbs–Thomson law, which is a classical model describing growth or melting of a spherical crystal in a surrounding liquid. We shall specialize to the cases of two and three space dimensions and discuss the asymptotic behaviour of a melting crystal near its dissolution time t* > 0. We prove here that, when the interface shrinks monotonically, the asymptotics near t = t* is of the form Here, R(t) denotes the radius of the crystal, σ is a surface tension parameter and u(r, t) represents the field temperature. An important point to be noticed is that (*) exhibits no dependence on the space dimension N, in sharp contrast with results known for the case σ = 0.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 2001

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