Experimental study of dedicated mechanical subcooling systems in flake ice machines

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for enhancing the performance and production capacity of a flake ice machine by integrating a dedicated mechanical subcooling system with the existing setup. The optimal flow rate between different configurations of the ice-making system (IMS) and the dedicated mechanical subcooling system (DMS) was determined through theoretical analysis. A performance test bench was established for the flake ice machine to compare and analyze the optimal ice production when the dedicated mechanical subcooling system was activated and deactivated. The optimal ice-scraping cycle of the evaporation bucket of the flake ice machine was identified when the ice-making dry rate was 2.0. An economic analysis of the system was conducted. The results indicated that using an R404A scroll compressor for the IMS and an R134a piston compressor for the dedicated mechanical subcooling system, the optimal refrigerant flow rate of the IMS and the DMS was 3.0–4.0 and the optimal ice-scraping cycle was 26.7 s when the ice-making dry rate was 2.0. Applying the DMS resulted in a 7.4 % increase in the operational performance of the machine. And the payback period for incorporating the DMS was determined to be 0.76 years. Research demonstrates that the combination of a DMS with a flake ice machine system presents novel insights for enhancing the operational performance of the flake ice machine system and increasing its production output.