Thermal Convection in Cylindro-Conical Tanks

Thermal Convection in Cylindro-Conical Tanks
During the Early Cooling Process

Yuji Takamoto ¹, ³ and Yoshio Saito ^2
1Frontier Laboratories of Value Creation, Sapporo Breweries Ltd., Shizuoka 425-0013, Japan
²Toho University School of Medicine, Tokyo 143-8540, Japan
³Corresponding author. E-mail: Yuji.Takamoto@sapporobeer.co.jp

J. Inst. Brew. 109(1), 80-83, 2003  |   VIEW ARTICLE

ABSTRACT
Industrially it is important to understand the cooling process of beer in cylindro-conical tanks (CCTs) in regard to energy efficiency and to the maturation of beer from 10°C to 0°C. However the cooling process is a complicated phenomenon. We have previously studied thermal convection in a miniature CCT constructed of transparent acrylic resin (ACCT) and found that thermal convection was not uniform, but rather wavy in the circumferential direction. In this report thermal convection was studied in a CCT constructed of metal and enlarged to the 500 L size. The water temperature in the CCT was measured by thermo-sensors and the surfaces visualized using an infrared camera.
We confirmed that both 500L CCT and ACCT have qualitatively similar flow from 10°C to below 4°C. Although there are size effects between small CCTs and large CCTs, experiments with the smaller CCT gave useful information on the early cooling process. An infrared camera was employed to investigate the state of convection and gave information on how to effectively refrigerate beer.
 

Key words:
Cylindro-conical tank, thermal convection, visualization of flow.