Aluminum Ceilings Revolutionize Ice Rink Design

A graduate of both Princeton and MIT, a champion squash player, and the inventor of everything from the medical k-pad to the hot dog roller, CALMAC founder Calvin MacCracken was indeed a Renaissance man. For hockey fans, however, his greatest-ever invention may have been the low-emissivity ceiling that has become a fixture in an estimated 2,000 ice rinks the world over.

The patented aluminum ceiling—dubbed Alumazorb—acts as a radiant barrier between the warm roof and the cold ice below to dramatically reduce rinks’ energy and operating costs. And for this invention, MacCracken, who died in 1999, was recently awarded the Ice Skating Institute’s (ICI’s) Frank J. Zamboni Award—named after the inventor of the ubiquitous ice-resurfacing machine.

“My father was passionate about innovation and had over 80 U.S. patents in his 50 years at CALMAC,” said son Mark MacCracken, who accepted the award on behalf of his father. “I was there the day he discovered the effects of ceiling radiation on indoor ice rinks, which ultimately led to the invention of the low-e ceiling.”

Presenting the award to MacCracken at the ISI’s Annual Ice Arena Conference, the Institute’s Executive Director Peter Martell noted, “[Calvin] MacCracken’s patented Alumazorb Low-Emissivity Ceiling dramatically reduces the energy consumption needed to maintain an ice surface and is heralded as ‘one of the most important advancements in the last 50 years.’”

Recent research by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) on the topic of energy usage in indoor ice arenas confirmed MacCracken’s discovery that radiation makes up over 40 percent of the refrigeration loads in ice rinks that haven’t addressed ceiling emissivity.

“The next time you are in an indoor ice rink, look above the ice surface. If you don’t see a shiny aluminum surface, the rink is wasting large amounts of energy and money,” the younger MacCracken noted.

How Does the Aluminized Low-E Ceiling Work?
According to ASHRAE, radiant heat transfer between the roof of a rink and the ice beneath is the single greatest factor behind heat gain in a typical arena. An aluminized ceiling acts as a highly efficient barrier to radiant heat transfer between these two surfaces, thus dramatically reducing the refrigeration load.

MacCracken’s Alumazorb ceiling radiates only 3 percent of the heat of the roof to the ice surface. Other materials used in roof construction radiate up to 90 percent of the heat to the surface below.

The highly reflective aluminum ceiling also increases ambient light levels in an arena by up to 50 percent.

aluminum, ceilings, ice rink, MacCracken