PART II ICE-MAKING EQUIPMENT
CHAPTER I
Introductory
Ice has become one of the necessities of life. The ice- making and refrigerating industry today occupies the ninth position in magnitude in American commerce. And this position has been reached in a comparatively few years, since it is one of the youngest industries.
It is with pardonable pride that we point to the fact that Frick Company is a pioneer in the manufacture of ice- making and refrigerating machinery and has always kept abreast of the ever-growing ice-making and refrigerating industry. Plants of all accepted types from the smallest to the largest, including the latest improved methods that have proven by test to be worthy of adoption, are manufactured by Frick Company. The appreciation of the Company’s efforts throughout forty years to maintain the highest stand- ard of design and materials, as shown by the continual in- crease in its business and the number of its satisfied custom- ers, is sufficient proof of its policy.
The comparative simplicity of the manufacture of arti- ficial ice and the fact that it ean be made close to its market out of the same water with which the community is supplied for household use, or out of distilled water, and at a cost low enough to compete with natural ice, has brought about its adoption everywhere.
The distilled water ice-making system which was largely used up to a few years ago has now been supplanted to a large extent by raw water systems. Of course, there are still a large number of distilled water plants in operation, and there are numerous cases where, on account of bad water conditions or due to an available supply of cheap exhaust
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steam, distilled water plants are the best suited and most economical today.
The development of central power stations and water power plants is affording attractive current rates and in numerous. localities after all conditions are considered it is found cheaper and better to buy power from one of these plants than to generate it. In other cases, where it is found to be more economical to generate the power, the use of modern uniflow engines, operating economically in connec- tion with high vacuum steam condensers, is advisable. Such engines, however, do not use sufficient steam to provide the quantity of distilled water required. ‘Then again, economy may dictate the use of gas producer or oil engines, either direct-connected or belted to the refrigerating machines.
The problem therefore has been to do away with the need of distilled water and the present-day raw water systems of ice making are the result. To make clear, merchantable ice from ordinary drinking water it is necessary to keep the water in lively agitation during the freezing period. Com- pressed air is used to produce this agitation.
There has been a wide development during the past ten years in raw water ice-making systems. ‘The present-day systems are the result of much work and costly experimenta- tion. Frick Company has played a large part in this devel- opment. Its modern ice plant is no longer an experiment in any sense of the word, but is a tried and proven equipment and is certain of success if properly installed and managed with ordinary care.
This booklet does not cover the refrigerating machine and compression system. ‘These are covered in detail in other issues. ‘This issue deals only with the ice-making system, since it alone forms a deciding factor in any plant.
Many of the parts of an ice-making system are common to all systems. These parts will be discussed and illustrated briefly before passing to a more detailed description of the different special parts forming the several accepted types or systems produced by Frick Company.
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