A Study Regarding the Unsteady Heat Transfer and Phase Change

Abstract

The paper presents the experimental and theoretical study for temperature distribution around the cooling pipes of an ice rink pad. The heat transfer in the skating rink track is nonstationary and phase changing. In case of skating rinks equipped with pipe registers, the temperature field during the ice formation process can’t be modeled by analytical methods. The experimental research was targeted on finding the temperatures in several points of the pad and also details on ice shape and quality around the pipes. The temperatures measured on the skating ring surface using thermocouples is impossible due to the larger diameter of the thermocouple bulb compared with the air-water surfaces thickness. For this reason we used to measure the temperature by thermography method, thus reducing the errors The experimental results were compared against the numerical modeling using finite elements.