Ice Machine

Ice Machine 

a heat exchanger used in manufacturing artificial ice.

The ice manufactured in ice machines is used in blocks, slabs, flakes, or crystals (snow) for industrial purposes and for food. The machine, connected to a refrigerator, freezes and dispenses ice. There are two kinds of ice machines: those with direct cooling, in which ice forms on the evaporator surfaces, and those with brine cooling.

Brine-cooled ice machines, which are used to produce blocks of ice, consist of ice cans and a tank containing the evaporator sections of the cooling apparatus. The cans are cooled by brine circulating in the tank. The temperature of the brine varies between —10° and — 12°C. (The boiling point of the cooling agent is usually 5°C lower.) The output of an ice machine producing blocks of ice may be as high as 100 tons per day, with each block weighing 5-50 kg. Ice machines producing slabs of ice are used at plants whose output exceeds 200 tons per day. Each slab frozen on the evaporators may weigh up to 4 or 5 tons.

More rapid ice-making is possible with machines without cans, which deliver the ice in the form of tubes, flakes, or snow. Flakes or crystals are obtained if the water is frozen continuously, in layers. This process yields the maximum ice output per unit of ice-forming surface. The machine produces as much as 40 tons of ice per day.