OPERATION OF A BENCH-SCALED GEL ICE STORAGE BY WATER-VAPOR EVACUATION- EFFECTS OF SIZES AND SHAPE OF GEL UNITS ON ICE PRODUCTION-RATE, ICEPACKING FACTOR AND COOLING OUTPUT

We constructed a 40 liter gel ice storage to search for how to design gel units as an ice storage substance. We studied the effects of size and shape of gel units on the ice production rate, ice packing factor and the cooling output under practical operation conditions. The follo wing results were obtained. (1) To get a uniform temperature distribut ion within the gel units during ice production, we have to design the sizes and shapes of them so that the mean evacuation rate per evaporat ion surface area of the gel will be a value of under 5.7 g/(m(2).min). (2) A column gel unit of 30 mm in diameter showed uniform ice product ion at a practical speed. (3) From the experiments with 20 to 40 liter s of column and sphere gel units, the followings were shown : a) The i ce packing factor was 58% for the column gel unit. b) Water temperatur es of 2.5 to 4 degrees C were obtained at the outlet of the gel ice st orage packed with 40 liters of column gel unit. c) The cooling output for the column gel unit was 0.58 kW, and this value is high enough for practical use.