Heat Transfer Engineering, Vol.29, No.3, 295-305, 2008
Evaluation of a recirculation scheme for ice storage melting with air as the working fluid
A new device has been developed for producing chilled air in the heat discharge flux for a cool-thermal discharge system with melt removal and external recycling, resulting in substantial improvement in the heat transfer rate. A mathematical formulation is developed using the integral boundary-layer analysis associated with the moving boundary condition. The theoretical predictions are presented graphically and compared to that in the device without external recycling and with the same working dimensions under a specified volumetric air flow rate. Considerable improvement in heat transfer is obtainable by employing the recycling operation instead of using the device without external recycling. The effects of the volumetric air flow rate and recycling ratio on the heat transfer efficiency enhancement and power consumption increment are also discussed. This study provides an improved heat-transfer efficiency design for a cool-thermal discharge system. The mathematical treatment presented in this study can be applied to any heat convection-conduction problems with moving boundaries.