Fundamental Study on Continuous Ice Making Using Flowing Supercooled Water.

Abstract

Basic experiments were carried out concerning the possibility of continuous ice making in supercooled water in a forced flow. In the experiments, the critical conditions of ice formation and stability of supercooled water flowing in cooling tubes were examined for four sets of tube dimensions under various Reynolds numbers. It was established that two ice growth modes of annular ice and dendritic ice appeared in the tubes according to the degree of supercooling. Nondimensional correlation equations of supercooling for ice nucleation in laminar and turbulent flow regions were derived as a function of the ratio of the thermal boundary layer thickness to the characteristic length. The latter is defined as the distance from the position where the mixing average temperature of the flowing water falls below freezing point, to the tube exit.