The Study of Heat Exchange between Air and Snow Block with a Vertical Hole (The Effect of Initial Height of Snow Block on the Characteristics of Heat Exchange).

The authors proposed the snow cooling system of direct heat exchange between hot air and snow block with a vertical hole. In this snow cooling system, the characteristics of heat exchange is little affected by the amount of remaining snow, and the outlet air temperature is almost constant, and be enough low to use for the actual air conditioning system. So this system has become to be adopted widely. In this study, the suthors investigated the effect of initial snow height on the characteristics of heat exchange by the experiment with models of practical scale. Experimental results showed that heat transfer coefficients on the snow surfaces of top and bottom plane were not affected by initial snow height, but the heat transfer coefficient of snow hole increased with decreasing snow height being affected by the entrance region. It was found that heat transfer coefficient of snow hole approached to a constant value on condition that snow height was over 2 meters. A empirical equation compensated by the initial height of snow block was obtained from the experimental results.