| World's
biggest ice maker FRIGOFRANCE has just unveiled what it says is the world's biggest ice-making machine - the 50 tonnes a day Geneglace F2000. "Fifty tonnes per day of dry and sub-cooled ice means 4825kWh of refrigeration available for immediate chilling", says the company. "With a large exchange surface, the flake-ice very rapidly releases its refrigeration |
 Design diagram of the Geneglace F2000 |
| potential
and maintains products at 0degC." The prototype was tested this summer in the greatest secrecy at the company's plant in Nantes, France. The F2000 was then sent by boat to continue trials in Japan, whereit will be the major part of a snow-gun to cover the Utopia Saļoto ski resort with snow from this month onwards. The main cylinder measuring 3 metres, |
for a
diameter of 2.45m, weighs about 5 tonnes (see diagram). "It was a rather mad wager", admits project leader Loļc Bretin. "We accumulated technical constraints both in its design and its production. "The specifications were complicated. The heat exchanger had to be not only effective with all modern refrigerants, R404A, R507, R22, R717, but it |
also had to
respond to the requirements of the main codes governing the manufacture of pressure
vessels. Bretin reveals that the series of trials involved intense work, with quite a number of incidents, to finally exceed the objective of 50 tonnes in 24 hours on the same day that the Japanese customer arrived at the factory. |
Fish Farming International - November 2001