Experimental Study for Using Ice in Air Conditioning to Reduce Peak Loads

Abstract

This paper provides an experimental debate about using ice in air cooling to reduce peak loads resulting from air conditioning. Three copper helical coils having the same surface area were used in the present work. The coils diameters are 5, 7 and 10 mm, coils lengths are 4.50, 3.22 and 2.26 m respectively. The three coils are have the same pitch circle diameter and different number of turns. Warm air have a temperature ranging from 40°C to 60°C was fed inside the coils immersed in slurry ice hours. The air flow rate was changed from 0.0008 to 0.0065 kg/s. The effects of Reynolds number and coil diameter on heat transfer characteristics were investigated. The results provided that Nusselt number, Nu, increases with the increase of Reynolds number for small tube diameter coil. Empirical correlations were found for both heat transfer and pressure drop as dimensionless groups in the range of experimental investigation.