Energy savings on industrial cooling tunnels by means of reduced ice formation on evaporators

The Lab test gives a accurate picture of the ideal conditions for the evaporater inside a cooling tunnel affect by heat, humid products.

The test results show, that the frost formation is different than expected due to the frost primarily is on the spikes of the fins and grows up against the air flow direction.  

Frost formation is apparently not affected by nano-coating of the fins and it is concluded that coating is not a usagable solution for this situation.

It was expected, that a change of the fins edge geometry with an bevelling would reduce the frost formation, but the resultat shows the opposite. This phenomenon is also analysed with simulation programme ANSYS to show how the flow variates with the size of the drops and geometry of the fins.

The subsequent full-scale tests have showed that to be able to define the optimal geometry and design for frost front detector with functional mechanism for removing frost, there is a need for more testing.