Frost growth and melting characteristics on glass fibers

Book · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:455374

Tao, Y X ^[1]; Mao, Y; Besant, R W ^[2]

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1. Tennessee State Univ., Nashville, TN (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
2. Univ. of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Frost growth over glass fibers of uniform diameter is observed using a microscope to investigate the cyclic effect of frosting and melting on the moisture accumulation in fiber-glass insulation, typically encountered in cold climate applications. A simple-three-dimensional conduction model is presented to demonstrate the temperature and local heat flux variation in the accumulated frost/water and attaching fibers. The numerical results show that the subcooling period for frost growth on fibers strongly depends on the fiber sizes and weakly depends on droplet sizes. For fiber diameters of greater than 0.23 mm, the local thermal equilibrium is no longer a good assumption.

• OSTI ID: 455374
• Report Number(s): CONF-950828--; ISBN 0-7918-1712-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FROST
MOISTURE
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
SUBCOOLING
THEORETICAL DATA
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMAL INSULATION
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS