How do arenas make ice

Those salts will also dull the blades of skates. The technology used in indoor ice rinks is the same type found in refrigerators and air conditioners. Brinewater is pumped through a system of pipes under the ice.

Those pipes are built into the concrete that makes the arena floor. And because brinewater freezes at a lower temperature than just water, that allows the water to stay a liquid as it moves through the pipes but still be cold enough to freeze the water poured onto the concrete floor. The ice is built in layers. It freezes almost immediately when it hits the cold floor. Then, more super-thin layers are applied. They are painted white to contrast with the black puck, and lines and logos are also painted on.

But the other is having a year-round efficiently refrigerated rink that can be used come rain or shine. But how is it made? An ice rink has the following layers and elements:. To create the skating surface the ice is built in layers. This layer freezes almost immediately when it hits the concrete and forms the base of the ice rinks skating surface.

After the first layer, more super-thin layers are applied and allowed to freeze. Within the first few layers, a layer will be painted white to contrast the black puck. The lines and logos required for ice hockey games are also painted on at this stage.

The entire process of spraying water, painting, and freezing can take up to four days. If the ice is too thick it will require more energy to freeze and the top may remain too soft. If it is too thin the skaters could cut through the ice to the concrete. The surface ice is kept at the required temperature by using a refrigeration system pumped through pipes embedded in the concrete slab below the skating surface.

The ideal temperature of the rink surface is around -4C for ice hockey. Note there will be other factors affecting the ice temperature including the building temperature, outdoor temperature, and humidity. Underneath there is a layer of insulation and a heated concrete layer. This keeps the ground below the ice from freezing, which could expand and ultimately crack the rink structure. You get a high rate of heat transfer through a very small unit.

Just as the face of the chiller appears to be changing, so it goes for the compressor. Reciprocating compressors, which employ a piston action similar to that of a car's engine, began giving way in the early s to screw compressors, which compress vaporized refrigerant by rotating the gas at high speed along the screw's rotors. A facility doesn't have to choose one type of compressor over the other, Brenton adds. A rink can use a single screw compressor to bear the bulk of its refrigeration workload while occasionally employing reciprocating compressors to trim the load.

Three types of condensers are currently available, each employing different methods to remove heat from the vaporized refrigerant. The evaporative condenser is used primarily with ammonia plants but is catching on in Freon plants, as well. It sends the refrigerant through coils, the exteriors of which are subject to cooler ambient air and streams of cool water. The evaporation of the water off the exterior walls of the coils absorbs heat from the refrigerant inside. Air-cooled condensers subject the refrigerant coils only to an air stream, while water-cooled condensers use a shell-and-tube approach to heat exchange, with cool water flowing through the interior tubes of the shell.

The efficiency of condensers that utilize ambient air will be subject to fluctuations in outside temperatures, since these condensers are located outside the arena. Air-cooled condensers, for example, would not be the best choice for rinks that operate year-round in climates with high summer temperatures or rinks in warm-weather locales.

Unfortunately, one component of a recreational ice facility that is among the greatest inhibitors of heat transfer is one that is quite literally cast in stone: the rink floor. Little can change the fact that concrete floors-and, to a slightly less pronounced extent, sand floors-do little to help pull heat through ice from its surface, where the greatest heat load in the whole equation originates and where the quality of the entire operation is measured.

Concrete offers the advantage of permanent flatness and protection for the pipes encased within it. It's also easier for the novice to make ice from scratch on concrete, since sand can bear significant weight only after carefully saturating it with water and allowing it to freeze. When choosing concrete, it is recommended that a contractor who specializes in rink installation be hired to handle the project.

Contractors accustomed to working on expansive floors, such as those found in warehouses, might not have the skills to properly handle the single monolithic pour required of a rink floor filled with carefully spaced and suspended pipes.

When installed properly, concrete floors maintain a consistent end-to-end ice thickness of roughly an inch and a quarter, which is easily monitored by regularly drilling through the ice to the concrete slab and taking measurements.

Ice sheets that are any thinner can become a safety concern; any thicker and the ice itself begins to inhibit heat transfer. Additives now on the market can slow the curing process of concrete as it's laid, thus increasing its density and enhancing its heat-transfer capabilities.

In addition, alterations made to pipes placed within the slab are believed to facilitate heat exchange with the concrete by churning the brine flow along ribbed interior walls.

This turbulence, which begins to appear naturally in a smooth pipe when the brine is pumped at 10 or more gallons per minute, occurs at flow rates half as strong in the ribbed pipe, which completely rolls the fluid every five feet. Goddard, who received the patent for the ribbed pipe less than two years ago, says that facilities incorporating the pipe in their rink floors can cut ice plant operation by as much as 90 minutes per day.

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