Ice-formation phenomena for water flow inside a cooled parallel plate channel : an experimental and theoretical investigation of wavy ice layers

Abstract

A numerical model is developed for predicting steady-state ice formation inside a cooled two-dimensional channel. The study takes into account the strong interactions existing between the turbulent flow, the shape of the ice and the heat transfer at the ice-water interface which lead to the formation of wavy ice layers with one wave. The presented analysis is found to be able to predict realistic variations of the ice layer thickness for a wide range of Reynolds numbers and cooling parameters. The numerical results were verified by comparing the predicted ice layers with measurements and generally good agreement was found.