Effect of a narrow channel inserted in the conventional ice block mold with brine injection on the productivity and ice formation behavior of the low temperature brine bathing ice production process

Abstract

ABSTRACT Block ice is cuboid in shape. It is produced by filling water into a mold and bathing it in a brine pool. For 270 × 560 × 1500 mm3 the production batch time is 24 hours. The aim of this work is to improve the conventional mold so that it has a batch time shorter than the low electrical cost duration of 11 hours. A narrow channel having nearly the same width as the mold was installed inside the mold. The brine is injected from the middle of the channel's open end at the mold base by a ½ inch nozzle. A CFD model was developed and validated with the experimental data. It was found that the optimum pool temperature and injection flow rate may be approximated to be −10 and 80 lpm, respectively. Heat transfer can be assumed to be in one dimension in the mold depth direction. As long as the channel height is less than that of the mold, the batch time will be comparable to that of the conventional mold. Regardless of the pool temperature, for a certain channel height, the channel can contribute to the productivity at approximately the same rate. The batch time was 9.73 hours.