Experimental Study of Frost Formation on a Flat Surface Under Nature Convection

Author(s):  
Y. L. Hao ◽  
Y.-X. Tao ◽  
J. Iragorry ◽  
D. Castro

A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the frost formation and characteristics on a flat surface under natural convections. The process of frost formation and structures is visibly observed and measured by using of a microscope. The temperature distribution of the air around the frost layer is measured by using of the holographic interferometry technique. The influences of the main parameters are analyzed. Especially, the microscopic analysis of frost growth on the surface characteristics on the microscopic characteristics of a frost layer during the early growth period when sub-cooled droplets are formed and changed to the ice. The thickness and mass of frost layer are measured while frost formation is visualized simultaneously. The results show that the frost surface temperatures are much lower than the freezing temperature and close to the cold surface temperature at the early growth period. After the early growth period, the frost surface temperature is dominated by the convective heat transfer between the frost surface and surrounding air.

Author(s):  
Y. L. Hao ◽  
J. Iragorry ◽  
D. Castro ◽  
Y.-X. Tao ◽  
S. Jia

In response to the need for developing a better model to predict frost formation and defrosting processes in freezer and evaporator applications, a microscopic analysis of frost growth on a flat surface is conducted to determine the microscopic characteristics of a frost layer during the early growth period when sub-cooled droplets are formed and changed to the ice. The surface characterization is performed by employing the holographic interferometry technique to determine the air-frost interface temperature, and the video microscope to determine the mean droplet size and ice particle fractions. Typical experimental results are presented to demonstrate the test technique. Preliminary experimentally determined frost thickness and air-frost interface temperature are compared with simulation results.


Author(s):  
Alexander S. Van Dyke ◽  
Amy Rachel Betz

The purpose of this research is to test hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and mixed hydrophobic and hydrophilic (biphilic) surfaces to see how theses surfaces affect frost nucleation and growth. Frost forms when humid air comes into contact with a surface that is below the dew point and freezing temperature of water. Many engineering systems are hindered by frost, such as aeronautics, refrigeration, and electrical transmission wires. Most recent research on frost formation has looked at making superhydrophobic materials, which lower the freezing point and increase the frost formation time. These materials are very dependent on operating conditions and surface roughness, which fluctuate often. A hydrophobic surface delays frost growth more than a hydrophilic surface and also creates a taller, less dense frost layer than the hydrophilic surface. Our hypothesis is that a biphilic surface will be better at slowing the frost formation process as well as creating a less dense frost layer. The water in the air will preferentially condense on the hydrophilic areas, thus controlling where the nucleation will first occur. This could help to control the size, shape, and location of the frost nucleation.


2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongliang Liu ◽  
Xinhua Zhang ◽  
Hongyan Wang ◽  
Sheng Meng ◽  
Chongfang Ma

Micro-observation of frost formation and deposition processes on a vertical hydrophobic cold surface was made under free convection conditions. The formation and shape variation of frost crystals during the initial period are described and the frost thickness variation with time on both hydrophobic and plain copper cold surfaces are presented. The various influencing factors are discussed in depth. The mechanism of frost formation on hydrophobic surfaces was analyzed theoretically. This revealed that increasing the contact angle can increase the potential barrier and restrain crystal nucleation and growth and thus frost deposition. The experimental results show that the initial water drops formed on a hydrophobic surface are smaller in size and remain in the liquid state for a longer time compared with ones formed on a plain copper surface. It is also observed that the frost layer deposited on a hydrophobic surface is loose and weak. Though the hydrophobic surface can retard frost formation to a certain extent and causes a looser frost layer, our experimental results show that it does not depress the growth of the frost layer.


2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chin-Hsiang Cheng ◽  
Keng-Hsien Wu

The present study is conducted to investigate the frost formation on a cold plate in atmospheric air flow by means of experimental and theoretical methods. In order to provide observations for the early stage of the frost growth process, a microscopic image system is used to record the pattern and the thickness of the frost layer per five seconds after the onset of frost formation. In this study, a multiple-step ascending frost growth pattern caused by melting of frost crystals at the frost surface has been observed. Effects of velocity, temperature and relative humidity of air (V,Ta, and ϕ) are studied, and the surface temperature of the cold plate Tw is also varied. The considered ranges of these dominant variables are: 2⩽V⩽13 m/s, 20⩽Ta⩽35°C, 40 percent ⩽ϕ⩽80 percent, and −13⩽Tw⩽−2°C. The theoretical model presented by Cheng and Cheng [22] for predicting the frost growth rate during the frost layer growth period is verified. Results show that the predictions of frost growth rate by the model agree with the experiment data, especially for the frost layer growth period.


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Yixu Wang ◽  
Mingxue Xu ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Nan Jiang ◽  
Dongchuan Wang ◽  
...  

Although research relating to the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon has been significantly increasing in recent years, there is still a lack of a continuous and clear recognition of the potential gradient effect on the UHI—landscape relationship within large urbanized regions. In this study, we chose the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region, which is a large scaled urban agglomeration in China, as the case study area. We examined the causal relationship between the LST variation and underlying surface characteristics using multi-temporal land cover and summer average land surface temperature (LST) data as the analyzed variables. This study then further discussed the modeling performance when quantifying their relationship from a spatial gradient perspective (the grid size ranged from 6 to 24 km), by comparing the ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) methods. The results indicate that: (1) both the OLS and GWR analysis confirmed that the composition of built-up land contributes as an essential factor that is responsible for the UHI phenomenon in a large urban agglomeration region; (2) for the OLS, the modeled relationship between the LST and its drive factor showed a significant spatial gradient effect, changing with different spatial analysis grids; and, (3) in contrast, using the GWR model revealed a considerably robust and better performance for accommodating the spatial non-stationarity with a lower scale dependence than that of the OLS model. This study highlights the significant spatial heterogeneity that is related to the UHI effect in large-extent urban agglomeration areas, and it suggests that the potential gradient effect and uncertainty induced by different spatial scale and methodology usage should be considered when modeling the UHI effect with urbanization. This would supplement current UHI study and be beneficial for deepening the cognition and enlightenment of landscape planning for UHI regulation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1700
Author(s):  
Yuanhuizi He ◽  
Fang Chen ◽  
Huicong Jia ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Valery G. Bondur

Droughts are one of the primary natural disasters that affect agricultural economies, as well as the fire hazards of territories. Monitoring and researching droughts is of great importance for agricultural disaster prevention and reduction. The research significance of investigating the hysteresis of agricultural to meteorological droughts is to provide an important reference for agricultural drought monitoring and early warnings. Remote sensing drought monitoring indices can be employed for rapid and accurate drought monitoring at regional scales. In this paper, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation indices and the surface temperature product are used as the data sources. Calculating the temperature vegetation drought index (TVDI) and constructing a comprehensive drought disaster index (CDDI) based on the crop growth period allowed drought conditions and spatiotemporal evolution patterns in the Volgograd region in 2010 and 2012 to be effectively monitored. The causes of the drought were then analyzed based on the sensitivity of a drought to meteorological factors in rain-fed and irrigated lands. Finally, the lag time of agricultural to meteorological droughts and the hysteresis in different growth periods were analyzed using statistical analyses. The research shows that (1) the main drought patterns in 2010 were spring droughts from April to May and summer droughts from June to August, and the primary drought patterns in 2012 were spring droughts from April to June, with an affected area that reached 3.33% during the growth period; (2) local drought conditions are dominated by the average surface temperature factor. Rain-fed lands are sensitive to the temperature and are therefore prone to summer droughts. Irrigated lands are more sensitive to water shortages in the spring and less sensitive to extremely high temperature conditions; (3) there is a certain lag between meteorological and agricultural droughts during the different growth stages. The strongest lag relationship was found in the planting stage and the weakest one was found in the dormancy stage. Therefore, the meteorological drought index in the growth period has a better predictive ability for agricultural droughts during the appropriately selected growth stages.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saugata Gon ◽  
Christopher Russell ◽  
Kasper Koert Jan Baack ◽  
Heather Blackwood ◽  
Alfred Hase

Abstract Paraffin deposition is a common challenge for production facilities globally where production fluid/process surface temperature cools down and reach below the wax appearance temperature (WAT) of the oil. Although chemical treatment is used widely for suitable mitigation of wax deposition, conventional test methods like cold finger often fail to recommend the right product for the field. The current study will present development of two new technologies PARA-Window and Dynamic Paraffin Deposition Cell (DPDC)to address such limitations. Large temperature gradient between bulk oil and cold surface has been identified as a major limitation of cold finger. To address this, PARA-Window has been developed to capture the paraffin deposition at a more realistic temperature gradient (5°C) between the bulk oil and surface temperature using a NIR optical probe. Absence of brine and lack of shear has been identified as another limitation of cold finger technique. DPDC has been developed to study paraffin deposition and chemical effectiveness in presence of brine. Specially designed cells are placed horizontally inside a shaker bath to achieve good mixing between oil and water for DPDC application. A prior study by Russell et al., (2019) showed the effectiveness of PARA-Window in capturing deposition phenomena of higher molecular weight paraffin chains that resemble closely to field deposits under narrow temperature gradient around WAT. Conventional test methods fail to capture meaningful product differentiation in most oils under such conditions and hence can only recommend a crystal modifier type of paraffin chemistries. PARA-Window technique can expand product selection to other type of paraffin chemistries (paraffin crystal modifiers, dispersants and solvents) as shown earlier by Russell et al., (2021). The usage of DPDC allows us to create a dynamic mixing condition inside the test cells with both oil and water under a condition similar to production pipe systems. This allows DPDC to assess water effect on paraffin chemistries (crystal modifiers and dispersants). This study presents the usage of these two new technologies to screen performance of different types of paraffin chemistries on select oils and their advantages over cold finger. The results identify how mimicking field conditions using these new technologies can capture new insights into paraffin products.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheolhwan Kim ◽  
Jongmin Shin ◽  
Alexei V. Tikhonov ◽  
Samchul Ha ◽  
Bongjun Choi

Abstract An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the effects of surface energy on frost formation. Test samples with three different surfaces of which Dynamic Contact Angles (DCA) are 23, 55 and 88 degrees are installed in a wind tunnel and exposed to a humid airflow. The thickness and the mass of frost layer are measured and used to calculate frost density while frost formation is visualized simultaneously with their measurements. Results show that frost density increases as time increases at specific test conditions. The air Reynolds number, the airflow humidity and the cold plate temperature are maintained at 12,000, 0.0042 kg/kg and −20 degrees Celsius, respectively. The surface with a lower DCA shows a higher frost density for a two-hour test, but no differences in frost density have been found after two hours of frost generation. Empirical correlations for thickness, mass and density are proposed as the functions of test time and surface energy. Visualization of frost generation was in good agreements with test results.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Chybicki ◽  
Marcin Kulawiak ◽  
Zbigniew Łubniewski

Abstract Estimation of surface temperature using multispectral imagery retrieved from satellite sensors constitutes several problems in terms of accuracy, accessibility, quality and evaluation. In order to obtain accurate results, currently utilized methods rely on removing atmospheric fluctuations in separate spectral windows, applying atmospheric corrections or utilizing additional information related to atmosphere or surface characteristics like atmospheric water vapour content, surface effective emissivity correction or transmittance correction. Obtaining accurate results of estimation is particularly critical for regions with fairly non-uniform distribution of surface effective emissivity and surface characteristics such as coastal zone areas. The paper presents the relationship between retrieved land surface temperature, air temperature, sea surface temperature and vegetation indices (VI) calculated based on remote observations in the coastal zone area. An indirect comparison method between remotely estimated surface temperature and air temperature using LST/VI feature space characteristics in an operational Geographic Information System is also presented.


Author(s):  
M. K. Firozjaei ◽  
M. Makki ◽  
J. Lentschke ◽  
M. Kiavarz ◽  
S. K. Alavipanah

Abstract. Spatiotemporal mapping and modeling of Land Surface Temperature (LST) variations and characterization of parameters affecting these variations are of great importance in various environmental studies. The aim of this study is a spatiotemporal modeling the impact of surface characteristics variations on LST variations for the studied area in Samalghan Valley. For this purpose, a set of satellite imagery and meteorological data measured at the synoptic station during 1988–2018, were used. First, single-channel algorithm, Tasseled Cap Transformation (TCT) and Biophysical Composition Index (BCI) were employed to estimate LST and surface biophysical parameters including brightness, greenness and wetness and BCI. Also, spatial modeling was used to modeling of terrain parameters including slope, aspect and local incident angle based on DEM. Finally, the principal component analysis (PCA) and the Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) were used to modeling and investigate the impact of surface characteristics variations on LST variations. The results indicated that surface characteristics vary significantly for case study in spatial and temporal dimensions. The correlation coefficient between the PC1 of LST and PC1s of brightness, greenness, wetness, BCI, DEM, and solar local incident angle were 0.65, −0.67, −0.56, 0.72, −0.43 and 0.53, respectively. Furthermore, the coefficient coefficient and RMSE between the observed LST variation and modelled LST variation based on PC1s of brightness, greenness, wetness, BCI, DEM, and local incident angle were 0.83 and 0.14, respectively. The results of study indicated the LST variation is a function of s terrain and surface biophysical parameters variations.


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