Steady-state freezing of liquids in laminar flow between two parallel plates

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the effect of freezing of liquid on the heat transfer characteristics for laminar flow between two cooled parallel plates of 20 mm in distance. Both plates were maintained at the same uniform temperature which was lower than the freezing temperature of the working fluid, water. The plate wall temperature ranged -2 ∼ -7 deg C and the inlet water temperature was varied from 1 to 8 deg C. The corresponding dimensionless wall temperature θw ranged 0.2 ∼ 4.5. The Reynolds number was varied from 700 to 2,300. The frozen layer was smooth and had a monotonously increasing thickness as water flowed downstream. In thin layer (θw ≤ 1.1), the experimental results agreed well with the analytical calculations. In thick layer (θw > 1.1), however, the measured layers were thinner than the calculated values since the fluid acceleration due to flow area reduction might produce an enhancement in heat transfer, which was neglected in the theory. (author)