Moving boundaries crystal dissolution

Denote boundary motion speed as u that may or may not depend on time. For crystal growth, the interface moves to the right with x = Xo>0. For crystal dissolution, the interface moves to the left with x = Xo<0. That is, u is positive during crystal growth and negative during crystal dissolution under our setup of the problem. The interface position can be found as... 

Other moving boundary problems such as crystal dissolution may be treated the same way. For example, for crystal dissolution, one way is to treat w as a negative parameter in the above equation. Alternatively, one may redefine u to... 

Mathematically, diffusive crystal dissolution is a moving boundary problem, or specifically a Stefan problem. It was treated briefly in Section 3.5.5.1. During crystal dissolution, the melt grows. Hence, there are melt growth distance and also crystal dissolution distance. The two distances differ because the density of the melt differs from that of the crystal. For example, if crystal density is 1.2 times melt density, dissolution of 1 fim of the crystal would lead to growth of 1.2 fim of the melt. Hence, AXc = (pmeit/pcryst) where Ax is the dissolution distance of the crystal and Ax is the growth distance of the melt. 

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