Estimating the solidification/melting times of cylindrically symmetric regions

A simple, explicit algorithm previously developed to produce accurate solutions of phase change problems in one space dimension, is extended to cope with circular regions with spatially uniform boundary conditions. On study of numerically predicted results a single non-dimensional expression, which provides a prediction of the solidification/melting time of a circular cylinder, is derived. This expression is subsequently used to provide upper and lower bounds on solidification/melting times for general symmetric cylindrically shaped regions with spatially uniform boundary conditions.