Abstract:Cold storage facility is widely expected to promote the development of agricultural and sideline products for better food quality in the evolving demand of a market. Meanwhile, a large amount of ice normally accumulates on the surface of cold storage equipment, such as the evaporator and heat exchanger, further deteriorating the operational performance of equipment and storage quality of products. Most anti/de-icing approaches have been developed to remove the accreted ice, including mechanical, heating, or chemical ways. These conventional anti-icing methods have caused high cost and energy consumption, even environmental pollution. Alternatively, a super hydrophobic surface presents the most potential anti-icing, but the durability and mechanical properties have been limited in the engineering field. A discontinuous circular coating of silicone rubber can be utilized to tailor the surface property of materials. However, there is a different phase transition time of attached water at different material surfaces, where the active anti-icing power is from the swelling force further to determine the ice adhesion strength. In this study, a feasible anti-icing model was proposed to change the continuity of substrate surface in a refrigerator. Silicone rubber with low thermal conductivity was coated at different locations on the substrate surface to modify the thermal conductivity of the substrate. The dimensional parameters of circular coated silicone rubber were determined to obtain the reduction rate of ice adhesion strength, such as the diameter, the center distance between the adjacent silicone rubbers, the duty cycle, and the thickness of coated silicone rubber. Meanwhile, an orthogonal rotation combination was used to design the experimental scheme. In addition, a self-developed device was utilized to measure the ice adhesion strength, further to calculate its reduction rate. The experimental results showed that the samples with different coating parameters on the surface had different reduction effects on ice adhesion strength. Furthermore, the non-continuous coating of silicone rubber on the sample surface significantly reduced the ice adhesion strength. Specifically, the reduction rate of ice adhesion strength on the aluminum alloy reached 52.38%, when the size of coated silicone rubber was 3.50 mm in diameter, 6.50 mm in center spacing, 8.50% in duty cycle, and 0.250 mm in coating thickness. The average reduction rate of ice adhesion strength on the aluminum alloy could reach 46.83%. And the maximum ice adhesion strength reduction rate was 52.38%. The variance analysis and Response Surface Method (RSM) were used to analyze the experimental data, and thus the mathematical regression models were established between the dimensional factors and the evaluation index. The significant influence on ice adhesion strength was determined in a descending order: center distance, duty ratio, thickness, and diameter of the coated silicone rubber. Phase change times depended mainly on the variation in continuous surface characteristics of the material at the various positions of attached water. In the post-icing area, the swelling stress rapidly generated to break the interfacial stability between the ice and coating, indicating an obvious reduction of ice adhesion strength. Therefore, a significant increase was achieved in the active anti-icing characteristics of the material for the further development of new anti-icing technology. This finding can provide new ideas for the subsequent research, particularly the effects of wettability and morphology of material surface on the ice adhesion strength. The anti/de-icing can also be expected to serve some engineering fields, including refrigeration, high-speed railway trains, and aircraft.