Ice machine

“ The pumps, compressors and other machinery of the modern ice-machine are the accessories merely that make practical the industry of producing ice according to the old and well-known law that rapid evaporation produces cold, as does also the sudden release of compressed air or gas. The modern economy known as cold storage is the result of the processes above described, save that the coils to carry ammonia are placed about the sides of large storage rooms and reduce the temperature of the air, as in ice-making they reduce that of the brine in tanks. ”

“ It was said in the writer's hearing recently that natural ice costs about as much when it was delivered at the docks or freight-yards of the large cities of the North as the product of the ice-machine. Of course, the manufactured ice is produced near the spot where it is consumed, and there is little loss through melting while it is being stored or transported, as in the case of the natural product. ”

“ With a machine there is absolutely no trouble, and directions will be given with each machine, so that any details here, which vary with the machine, will be useless. Ices can be made at home without a machine with a little trouble, and, to explain how to do this, it is necessary to explain the theory of ice-making, which is exceedingly simple. We will not allude to machines dependent on freezing-powders, but to those which rely for their cold simply on ice and salt mixed. ”

“ Ships carrying perishables have the safety of their cargoes insured by a refrigerator plant. In all large cities there are ice manufactories using the same method, and of late even relatively small establishments, hotels, and apartment houses have their ice-machine. It seems probable that before long all such buildings and many private dwellings will be provided with a cooling apparatus as regularly as they are now equipped with a heating apparatus. ”

“ General Principles—Freezing Mixtures—Perkins’ Ice Machine, 1834—Pictet’s Apparatus—Carré’s Ammonia Absorption Process—Direct Compression and Can System—The Holden Ice Machine—Skating Rinks—Windhausen’s Apparatus for Cooling and Ventilating Ships.
Very few people have any correct conception of the principles of ice-making. Most persons have heard in a vague sort of way that chemicals are employed in its manufacture, and many a fastidious individual has been known to object to artificial ice on the ground that he could taste the chemicals, and that it could not therefore be wholesome. ”

“ To carry with us a number of ice tools, which we might never need, was out of the question. We had only calculated with landing on, and rising from, suitable ice. No one had dreamed of the present situation. We looked at our available tools: three slip knives, one big knife, one ax, one ice-anchor, which in time of need could be used as a pick. It is unbelievable what people can do when they are driven to it. There was only one way to get the machine into safety—and for that the iceberg must come down and be leveled and it would appear that we only had our fingers to do it with. ”

“ We will suppose we want a lemon-water ice, i.e., we have made some very strong and sweet lemonade, and we want to freeze it. It is well known that water will freeze at a certain temperature, called freezing-point. By mixing chopped ice and salt and a very little water together, a far greater degree of cold can be immediately produced, viz., a thermometer would stand at 32° below freezing-point were it to be plunged into this mixture. An ice machine is a metal pail placed in another pail much larger than itself. ”

“ Nothing could be more erroneous, nor more amusing to the physicist, since no chemicals ever come in contact with either the water or the ice. An intelligent understanding of the operations of an ice machine involves only a correct appreciation of one of the physical laws governing the relation of heat to matter, and the forms which matter assumes under different degrees of heat. ”

“ We asked to see the load on the driving belt that disappeared from the driving pulley through a board partition.
Becker, fairly assured, took us inside into a dark space to a ten-ton ice machine, developing about half its capacity because of slow speed.
Glancing about it for a moment, we returned to the engine room and went outside as though about to return to the dock, considering it a hopeless case. Becker followed us, greatly concerned.
"Mr. Becker, it is a plain case of overload; you must lighten the work of your ice machine. You are attempting to make the motor do too much. ”

“ Much credit is due these early inventors, who introduced a type of machine which is now extensively employed, and is known as the compression system.
In 1851, Dr. John Gorrie, of New Orleans, La., patented a machine for producing ice, by compressing and expanding atmospheric air. This machine was also the pioneer of its class. It gave rise to what are known as air machines, used in England and on the Continent, and extensively employed for facilitating the transportation of fresh beef and mutton on the ocean. ”

“ The idea is rather an ingenious one, but we are confident our inventors can attain a like object by simpler means.
THE VACUUM METHOD OF MAKING ICE.--An ice and cold producing machine has been invented by Herr Franz Windhausen, Brunswick. The action of the machine is based on the principle of producing cold by the expansion of atmospheric air, which is accomplished by means of mechanical power. The machines require no chemicals, nothing being used in them but water and atmospheric air. They may be wrought by steam, water, or wind, and they produce from 100 to 1,000 lbs. ”

“ Of course the water will be kept well above the freezing point when the motor is running, and it is only when the machine has stood idle for several hours that care must be taken to prevent the formation of ice in the circulating system. ”

“ When the cakes of ice are considered to be of sufficient thickness, the cold brine is pumped out of its compartment into another tank, and its place is filled with water of ordinary temperature. This soon thaws the ice cakes loose from the plates, and allows the mass of ice to be lifted out by hoisting machinery. The ice is then passed on to the sawing-machine, which divides it into blocks weighing about two hundred pounds each. ”

“ For example: if an ink spot somewhat larger than the tube be observed, the lower end of the tube will appear to be blackened on the inside.
ICE MACHINES.
Ice machines are constructions designed to employ the heat generated from coal in extracting the heat stored up in water at the ordinary temperature. One ton of coal will make 15 tons of ice, and yet only about 1 per cent. of the power used is utilized, these machines being especially wasteful of heat. ”

“ The artificial manufacture of ice is effected by the means of the condensation of elastic vapours in machines expressly made for the purpose. In Siebe’s ice-making machine the vapour of ether is made to traverse metallic tubes surrounded with a concentrated solution of common salt, by which it becomes recondensed to the liquid state, to be again utilised in the production of the vapour; the solution of salt becoming at the same time so reduced in temperature, as to convert into ice, water, contained in proper vessels, placed in it. ”

“ Freezing machines have too been used in sinking and tunnelling, the water being prevented from running into the shaft owing to the hardening of the earth by freezing. The cost of imported ice may be taken as 20/- per ton, while machine ice can be made for 5/- per ton. The first commercial machine, patented by James Harrison, of Geelong, in 1856, was an ether machine, and made in London. Afterwards machines of this kind were made by Mr. Philips, of the Atlas Works, in Oozells Street, Birmingham. ”

“ Two pressure-gauges, one of them fixed on the freezer and the other on the liquefier, permit of regulating the running of the machine. The vacuum in the freezer is 0 to 1⁄2 atmosphere, and the pressure in the liquefier is 3 to 4 atmospheres. These apparatus make opaque ice, but will likewise produce transparent, if a pump for injecting air is adjoined. This, however, doubles the time that it takes to effect the freezing, and carries with it the necessity of doubling the number of moulds to have the same quantity of ice. ”

“ Ice machines have now reached such a high degree of efficiency that their product can compete with natural ice in these latitudes. In the summer of 1890 the price of natural ice to families in New York was a dollar a hundred-weight, while artificial ice sold for fifty cents. No doubt further improvements in machinery and methods will be invented, which will make it possible to furnish ice at a still lower price than now, and will lead to a freer and more general use of this commodity. ”

“ The brewers were formerly among the largest customers of the ice companies, but now nearly every brewery has a refrigerating machine of its own, and more machines are used by them than by all other users put together. No ice is made with these machines, except for packing beer for shipment, as the cooling required can be accomplished more conveniently by circulating cold brine or cold fresh water in pipes where it is needed. ”

“ It is a kind of plow, drawn by a horse, with several shares which cut marks upon the ice. The ice-cutter is a similar machine whose shares cut deeper than those of the marker, and, if the ice is thick, it is run several times in the same cuttings, so that the ice is finally nearly cut through. The cross-cuttings, by which the ice is cut into blocks or slabs, are usually made by hand. Other tools are used to detach the blocks and seize or push them, while floating, toward the chute or elevator of the ice-house. ”

“ A more regular effect is obtained when the freezing particles are suspended in still air, and here they build themselves into those wonderful figures which Dr. Scoresby has observed in the Polar Regions, Mr. Glaisher at Greenwich, and I myself on the summit of Monte Rosa and elsewhere.
Not only however in air, but in water also, figures of great beauty are sometimes formed. Harrison's excellent machine for the production of artificial ice is, I suppose, now well known ”

“ Ice machines are also made, in which ice is produced, by bringing water into contact with air, which has been greatly reduced in temperature by cooling it when in the compressed state, and subsequently allowing it to expand. Liquid carbonic and sulphurous acids have likewise been used in the preparation of artificial ice, but not when it has been required in any considerable quantity. See Refrigeration.
Ice, Medicated. Mr Martin, of Weston-super-Mare, writing to the ‘Lancet,’ says:—“Every practitioner has at times to face the difficulties of the scarlatinal throat in young children. ”

“ In describing various special types of motors, attention is first directed to that class which depend on the development of heat in various gases, and this also necessitates some explanation of ice-making machinery, and the principles underlying refrigeration.
It is not an anomaly to say that to make ice requires heat. Ice and boiling water represent merely the opposites of a certain scale in the condition of matter, just as we speak of light and darkness, up and down, and like expressions. ”

“ Accordingly such machines are so constructed that by the operation of a piston, or pistons, in a cylinder, and actuated by steam or other motive power, the air or gas is compressed to the desired temperature, the heat led off and the cold vapour conducted through pipes and around chambers where water is placed and where it is frozen. By the best machines from five hundred to one thousand pounds of ice an hour are produced. ”

“ In some cars, ventilation is so arranged that the air can be changed or not, as desired. The fans are run by motion taken from one of the car axles, and are arranged to be run by hand when the car is not in motion.
Icing Refrigerator Cars.—When a train is to be loaded with beef or mutton, it is set in on a track alongside of the icing platform. By means of double tracks on either side, as many as fifty cars can be iced at short notice. Ice cakes are delivered on a staging above the platform by elevator, suited to the location, and run into the hopper of a large power ice breaker. ”

“ Fifty-two degrees of cold is thus easily obtained, and the machines used for the purpose can produce several tons of ice each day in the hottest countries. Much artificial ice is now made by compressing atmospheric air, and by this method a freezing temperature is obtained on vessels employed in carrying fresh meats from distant countries. ”

“ One of these devices employs a gas jet, or lamp light, the heat from which, acting on a kettle filled with chemical compound, produces a low temperature for a small house refrigerator, while the same principle is claimed to be applicable on a larger scale.
The Uses of Artificial Refrigeration are numerous. For cooling and ventilating buildings, aiding in some lines of manufactures, and in chemical works, it has proved its usefulness. In all hot climates it is extensively employed for making ice. In breweries it is applied very extensively, and is practically indispensable. ”

“ The ice chest must be full in order to cool the air and start the heavier (cool) air falling through the chest, which as it descends gets warmer, rises, passes over the ice, cools again and drops—and so on in endless circulation. It is these currents which keep the refrigerator cold; it is not the ice cake itself. In a little ice box, yes, the food has to be put into the ice chamber as there is no other, but here you are not depending on the melting of the ice starting air currents to descend and to rise. ”

“ Sixteen of our men were from Shetland, a quiet, sober, industrious lot.
Standing on the forecastle, I watched the ship crunching through several miles of young ice. She never actually stopped once. Her bows would rise up on it, then huge slabs would tilt on end as she glided on. Sometimes a long crack would open and let her slide in to be almost stuck. By degrees she would gain way and probably steam into an open pool, to strike the opposite side with considerable force, thereby opening a crack in which she would repeat the performance. The engine is the secret of ice navigation. ”