Observation of Freezing Behavior of Ice Slurry Flowing in a Rectangular Channel

Abstract

When the ice slurry is transported by pipe, blockage in the pipe may occur depending on the flow conditions and the surrounding environment. One of the causes is freezing of ice slurry in the pipe caused by chilled from outside, but the mechanism has not been fully elucidated. In this study, ice slurry generated from ethanol aqueous solution was flowed into a rectangular channel and cooled from upper and lower side of the channel to observe the freezing behavior of ice slurry. IPF, Reynolds number and temperature difference between ice slurry and brine were chosen as the experimental parameters. As a result of comparison with the Stefan solution, which is an exact solution to the freezing problem, the thickness of the frozen layer tends to be slightly higher than the Stefan solution. Furthermore, when ice particles are contained or Reynolds number is low, the growth rate of the frozen layer at upper side of the rectangular channel was found to be slightly faster than other conditions.