Numerical Simulation And Experements Of Airflow In Mini Cool Store

Low temperature storage for fruit and vegetable is used widely in the world. Mini cool stores are suitable for rural financial and technology condition in China because of cheap and simply operation. The development of mini cool store will improve its post-harvest treatment and farmers income.Storage quality of fruit and vegetable is not only related to its characters ,but also to airflow in cool store. It is important for cooling rate and quality of foodstuffs in the cool store with the uniform flow of temperature and velocity field. In this paper, numerical simulation of air flow in a mini type cool store was calculated and researched. The main contents of this paper include follows:(1) A physical and turbulence mathematics model of a mini-type cool store was established and simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT with standardκ-εmodel and appropriate boundary condition during chilling process and cooling storage process.(2) In order to verify the simulation results during chilling process and storing process, the experiments by comparing the simulations were carried out.(3) Moisture loss of samples during the storage process has been measured and compared based on simulation results.Through above studies main conclusions were listed as followed:(1) Simulation results during chilling process showed that there was a circum fluence in flow field, in which the temperature was higher than the field closing to the wall. After temperature tested, it was found that the maximal error of simulated and measured temperature was 3%, and trend was coincident, the correlation determination coefficient (R~2) and standard error(SE) were 0.6041 and 3.0274.(2) By simulation of cooling store process, results showed that there were two circum fluences in flow field symmetrically, the mainstream of flow field had the feature of closing to the wall and velocity had the feature of decreasing near to the corner. After temperature and velocity tested, it was found that the maximal error between simulated and measured temperature was 2.57% and the maximal error between simulated and measured velocity was 28.5%.(3) The experiment results of moisture loss of samples during the storage process reflected that moisture loss of samples on the same plane of flow field hadn't apparent variation, and moisture loss of samples in the direct cold air blew was 1.62%, which was larger than moisture loss of samples which was 1.28% in the indirect cold air blew.