Evaporation Characteristics of Single Water Droplet in Ice Slurry Production System of Evaporative Supercooled Water

Abstract

To analyze the evaporation characteristics of single water droplet in the air with low temperature and low humidity, a theoretical model of droplet heat and mass transfer was proposed. The evaporation process of droplet in supercooled stage was simulated through theoretical model, results from modeling basically tallies with experiment, thus it is feasible to predict the evaporation characteristics of water droplet with smaller diameter by the mathematical model. The evaporative supercooled process of droplet in ice-slurry production system was calculated using the above-mentioned theoretical model. Results show that both the smaller droplet diameter and the lower droplet initial temperature can increase the cooling rate of water, in addition, the cooling rate can also be increased with the increase of air velocity or with the decrease of air temperature. Futhermore, droplet with lower supercooled temperature can be obtained with lower the air temperature. The initial droplet diameter less than 100µm can not only greatly improve the supercooling degree when the evaporative time of droplet is same, but also decrease the height of the ice making chamber.