scope:

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the results of an experimental study carried out to investigate the influence of a DC electric field on frost formation and accumulation on an upward-facing flat plate. An experimental setup was built to investigate the influence of the electric field intensity and uniformity on frost mass accumulated on the flat surface and to analyze its dependence on cold surface temperature, air velocity and test duration. In the experiments different electrode geometries were adopted allowing to compare uniform electric field with non-uniform ones. Every experiment was conducted under controlled environmental conditions (air dry bulb temperature and air relative humidity), which were appropriate for heat pump applications and not well investigated in open literature. The results show that the electric field allows reducing the frost mass accumulated on flat plate surface up to a value of 26% while the power required to maintain the electric field is quite low. They also suggest that a uniform electric field could achieve better results even if its applicability has to be deeply considered.