Prediction of the heat transfer coefficient for ice slurry flows in a horizontal pipe

In this study, heat transfer for ice slurry flows was investigated. For the experiments, ice slurry was made from 9% ethanol–water solution flow in a 20 mm internal diameter, 1000 mm long horizontal copper tube. The ice slurry was heated by a cylindrical electrical resistance. Experiments of the melting process were conducted with changing the ice slurry mass flux rate and the heat flux. The enthalpy-porosity formulation was used to predict the ice slurry temperature and the local values of heat transfer coefficient in the exchanger. Measurements and data acquisition of ice slurry temperature and mass flow rate at the inlet and outlet are performed. It was found that the heat transfer rates increase with the mass flow rate, the ice fraction and the heat flux density. However, the effect of ice fraction appears not to be significant at high mass flow rates. In addition, the correlation proposed by Christensen and Kauffeld gives good agreement with numerical results.