Horizontal Heat Exchangers for Ice Manufacturing and Storage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing ice manufacturing and storage devices face inefficiencies in energy consumption and ice filling capacity due to inhomogeneous temperature distribution, ice plate adhesion, and irregular ice arrangement, leading to energy loss and potential device damage.
Innovation Solution
The device employs a heat-insulated storage tank with horizontally mounted tubular heat exchangers, featuring two parallel heat exchangers with deflected flow channel connections and a tubular nozzle distributor for homogeneous temperature distribution, and a counter-plate with edge thermal insulation to ensure efficient ice production and storage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single long tubular flow channel is used in heat exchange units, then the device structure is simplified, but the temperature distribution becomes inhomogeneous and ice plates detach irregularly
Solution Approach 1:
The single long tubular flow channel is divided into multiple separate tubular flow channels arranged in parallel. Each channel has its own inlet and outlet connections to the collector, ensuring uniform thermodynamic medium distribution. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by maintaining structural simplicity while achieving homogeneous temperature distribution across all heat exchange surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
Each tubular flow channel is equipped with local nozzle distributors that deliver thermodynamic medium directly to the inlet of each channel. This local quality approach ensures that each segment of the heat exchange unit receives adequate cooling, preventing the temperature inhomogeneity that would occur with a single long channel.
2Quantity of substance
If ice plates are allowed to accumulate in the water reservoir, then storage capacity is utilized, but ice plates adhere to each other and to heat exchange units, causing energy loss and potential device damage
Solution Approach 1:
The heat exchange units are mounted horizontally above the water reservoir rather than vertically within it. This dimensional change allows ice plates to detach and fall into the reservoir without adhering to the heat exchange surfaces, eliminating the energy loss associated with repeated freezing and detachment cycles while maximizing storage capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The heat exchange units are extracted from the water reservoir and positioned above it. This separation removes the source of adhesion problems where ice would bond to the heat exchange units, allowing ice to be stored in the reservoir without energy loss from adhesion while the heat exchange units remain functional above the water level.
3Quantity of substance
If thermodynamic medium flow direction is changed frequently to detach ice plates, then ice storage capacity is maintained, but energy consumption increases and device reliability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
By positioning heat exchange units horizontally above the water reservoir, the design eliminates the need for frequent flow direction changes to detach ice. Ice plates naturally detach and fall into the reservoir due to gravity, significantly reducing the frequency of operational changes and improving device reliability while maintaining storage capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The horizontal mounting of heat exchange units above the reservoir creates a configuration where ice detachment is facilitated by gravity from the beginning of the process. This preliminary arrangement prevents ice adhesion issues before they occur, eliminating the need for corrective flow direction changes and enhancing operational reliability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design minimizes energy consumption, maximizes ice filling capacity, and prevents ice plate adhesion, resulting in efficient ice production and storage with even ice thickness and arrangement, reducing energy loss and device damage.
Implementation Method 1
a heat-insulated storage tank with a water reservoir embedded inside
Implementation Method 2
heat exchange units with tubular exchangers
Implementation Method 3
the heat drawn from the water lowers its temperature below the freezing temperature and the water freezes
Implementation Method 4
Compressed medium in the form of a gas at a temperature above 0°C flows through the tubular channels of the device, with the effect of melting the ice
Implementation Method 5
the flow direction of the thermodynamic medium changes. Compressed medium in the form of a gas at a temperature above 0°C flows through the tubular channels
Implementation Method 6
tubular nozzle distributor for homogeneous temperature distribution
Implementation Method 7
counter-plate with edge thermal insulation
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~4
Figure 5~7
AI summary
The device comprises a closed, a heat-insulated storage tank with a water reservoir embedded inside, wherein a plurality of inner chambers are separated by horizontally mounted and spaced apart units with tubular heat exchangers. Each unit comprises two similar heat exchangers included in parallel the thermodynamic medium circuit through the inlet collectors (7.1) and the outlet collectors (8.2). The inlet collectors (7.1) are connected with the outlet collectors (8.2) through the perpendicular tubular flow channels (5.1). Final sections (10.2) of the flow channel connections (5.2) to the outlet collector (8.2) are bent off the plate of the radiator (4) common for both exchangers by a dimension (e) greater than half the sum of the outside diameters of the inlet (7.1) and outlet collector (8.2). The tubular nozzle distributors (11), having many nozzle orifices on the side, directed coaxially to the flow channels (5.1), are introduced to the inside of the inlet collectors (7.1). The diameters of the nozzle orifices increase successively from the end of the thermodynamic medium supply. The nozzle distributors of the first and second heat exchangers are built into the adjacent ends of both inlet collectors (7.1). The heat exchangers are superimposed so that their straight long sections of the flow channels (5.1, 5.2) are alternating with each other in the plane of the radiator (5.1) and are connected with one, common plate of the radiator (4).