CO2 refrigeration system for ice production in snow making generators at ambient temperatures above 0°C.

In many destinations in Europe and Northern countries, the snow is not available when the skiing arrangement is going to take place. There is an increasing interest to install ice machines to supplement the stored snow from the previous year, giving possibility to start the skiing season as early as possible. The capacity of such machines is 50 to 100 tonnes of ice per day. Flake ice system with a production capacity of 50 tons day-1 was modelled in EES, to investigate the thermodynamic performance at different ambient temperatures. The flake ice model shows that single stage systems consume less energy than two stage systems. The U-value and ice growth rate for the flake ice drum are highly dependent on the ice thickness, and the ice thickness influence the heat transfer from water to CO2. COMSOL calculations reveal that increasing the number of refrigerant pipes in the flake ice drum above 200, do not affect the temperature distribution on the freezing surface too much. The thickness can be optimized regarding the structural strength, rather than the heat transfer.