4328 -- A Method for Measuring Ice Slurry Particle Agglomeration in Storage Tanks PDF

When stored in tanks as a slurry in water, ice particles tend to agglomerate to adjacent particles. This impedes the utilization of the pumped ice slurry in district cooling systems. Therefore, measuring the existence of agglomeration and the rate at which agglomeration proceeds is very important to ice slurry system operation. We have developed and tested a new technique based on the large difference in electrical resistivity (the reciprocal of electrical conductivity) between ice and liquid water. The developed sensor is capable of measuring resistivity changes associated with localized ice particle/particle interactions in storage caused by agglomeration. Sensor output shows that the ice particles freeze together at the outer regions of the ice bed over time during storage in tanks. In addition, a series of experiments with this instrumentation indicates that a small amount of antifreeze can prevent ice particle agglomeration in a slurry.

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