Phase Transitions in Viscous Heat Conducting Compressible Fluids

Abstract

As will become apparent in later chapters a large number of physical processes is so conditioned that phase change phenomena play an important role in them. As an example we might mention the water content in a glacier or the melting and freezing processes that take place at the lower boundary of an ice shelf between the shelf and the ocean. The permafrost in arctic regions or at high altitudes in the mountains often thaws in summer and forms a phase change surface between the frozen and thawed soil. If the temperature in an ice sheet is close to or at the melting point then the heat due to internal dissipation will not be used to adjust the ice temperature to the new conditions but to melt ice. For these and many other reasons it is important that the phase change processes are well understood.