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First, yes, I have done searches. I've read about more chiller design concepts than I can count! lol Some basic themes seem to continue regardless of forum or who created the design....time in contact with the cooling medium should be maximized; ice works better than a pipe in ice; ice melts and tends to freeze back together thereby reducing flow. So, I began to think about ways to compensate for this.
Granted, not everyone has the room for what i am thinking about, and many don't want to use this much ice (it's not exactly cheap to buy and making this much yourself is a royal pain!), but I'm not going for a compromise here. I'm going for alleviating the problems inherent in most designs.
I figure one way to maximize time in contact with the ice is to make the route of travel longer. A way to minimize reduction of flow is to create channels within the ice for the fog to flow through. So I have a few 55 gallon plastic barrels laying around and thought these would be perfect. Yes, a bit large, but I already have em so what they heck. Anyway, I want to take the barrel and lay it on it's side. In one end is the input tube going into an expansion chamber approximately 1/3 the volume of the barrel. The other half will be split into two sections running lengthwise. The first section will have a mesh/chicken wire barrier to allow the fog to go into it from the expansion chamber. The other side is sealed off from the chamber. In both sides there will be layers of ice held in place by sturdy mesh/chicken wire with air gaps in between them. Think something along the line of a bee keeper's hive. It flows through the one side, up to the "top" and then over to the other side and past more ice before going out the exit.
I figure that not only will it still be flowing through ice and over ice, but with the large air gaps (thinking of trying 1-2" air gaps) you would still get flow even if the ice melted into a clump which would prevent flow through the ice itself. If I build it right I can just prop it up on end, open the lid, and fill all of the layers with ice, then secure the ends of the layers, pop the lid back on, lay on its side, and go to town.
Thoughts?
Granted, not everyone has the room for what i am thinking about, and many don't want to use this much ice (it's not exactly cheap to buy and making this much yourself is a royal pain!), but I'm not going for a compromise here. I'm going for alleviating the problems inherent in most designs.
I figure one way to maximize time in contact with the ice is to make the route of travel longer. A way to minimize reduction of flow is to create channels within the ice for the fog to flow through. So I have a few 55 gallon plastic barrels laying around and thought these would be perfect. Yes, a bit large, but I already have em so what they heck. Anyway, I want to take the barrel and lay it on it's side. In one end is the input tube going into an expansion chamber approximately 1/3 the volume of the barrel. The other half will be split into two sections running lengthwise. The first section will have a mesh/chicken wire barrier to allow the fog to go into it from the expansion chamber. The other side is sealed off from the chamber. In both sides there will be layers of ice held in place by sturdy mesh/chicken wire with air gaps in between them. Think something along the line of a bee keeper's hive. It flows through the one side, up to the "top" and then over to the other side and past more ice before going out the exit.
I figure that not only will it still be flowing through ice and over ice, but with the large air gaps (thinking of trying 1-2" air gaps) you would still get flow even if the ice melted into a clump which would prevent flow through the ice itself. If I build it right I can just prop it up on end, open the lid, and fill all of the layers with ice, then secure the ends of the layers, pop the lid back on, lay on its side, and go to town.
Thoughts?
