Refriac and SWEP enable mobile ice rinks for year-round skating in tropical Brazil

The customer: Refriac, a family-owned Brazilian chiller manufacturer with more than 45 years of experience in the industrial chiller market. 

The challenge: Build and maintain mobile ice rinks that are energy-efficient, compact, and easy to transport and install, even in Brazil’s tropical climate.

The solution: Refriac chillers, specialized for freezing ice-skating rinks, combined with SWEP BPHE technology.

The heat exchangers: In this case, SWEP installed seventy (70) SWEP P80ASH heat exchangers as evaporators in Refriac chillers for 20 mobile ice rinks.

The results: Refriac chillers provide energy energy-efficient solutions for 60% of Brazil’s mobile ice rinks.

Chillers for ice rinks

In tropical countries like Brazil, below-zero temperatures are rare. Winter sports, such as such as hockey, figure skating, speed skating, and curling, can only be practiced at local ice-skating rinks, which are often found at shopping malls. Mobile ice rinks are frequently featured at festivals for entertainment and recreational skating.

The role of SWEP brazed plate heat exchangers

Mobile rinks need to be compact, simple to transport, and easy install. Refriac chillers are used to generate an 8cm-thick layer of ice, which enables skates to glide easily and ensures that the ice on the track remains dry.
SWEP’s 80AS range of high-performance evaporators provide an efficient, energy-saving, compact heat transfer solution for Refriac chillers, helping to maintain perfect ice rink conditions all year round.

Why choose SWEP?

Offering exceptional performance and small footprint, the SWEP P80ASH BPHE is a perfect fit for Refriac’s chiller design. The P80AS features SWEP’s patented AsyMatrixTM technology, which offers improved thermal performance and reduced pressure drop. This optimization significantly increases heat flux, saving energy and boosting the effectiveness of high-efficiency chiller and heat pump systems. For these reasons and more, Refriac selected 70 of these units to use as evaporators in their chillers.

More about Refriac

Refriac is a family-owned Brazilian chiller manufacturer that has produced more than 5,500 pieces of equipment over the past 45 years. Since 2010, Refriac has offered a specialized line of chillers designed for generating thick sheets of ice for skating rinks. Combined with brazed plate heat exchanger technology from SWEP, Refriac keeps skaters happy and cool – even in the hot Brazilian summers!