INHOUSE PROJECT

ON

MODELLING OF COLD STORAGE USING

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS
Submitted by:- Rahul Joshi

AMITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND

TECHNOLOGY

Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering

Amity University, Uttar Pradesh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to appreciate all those whose caring advices proved to be very helpful during the
course of this project. I would like to show my sincere gratitude to my faculty guide,
Assistant Professor Dr. Basant Singh Sikarwar for giving some of his precious time to this
project and for helping me on various difficulties faced during project. I also thank my
colleagues without whose support this project could have never really been completed.
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude towards our respected Head of department, Prof.
Vivek Kumar. I would also like to show my heartiest gratitude towards our President Sir
Ashok Chauhan for providing the infrastructure without which this project could never would
have happened. At last I would like to thank my parents, without whom I could have never
been able to join the esteemed institute like Amity University Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The
project has got its desired end due to their motivation.

ABSTRACT

In India seventy percentage populations are doing farming. Improvement of their life style
can improve the overall status of the country. The economic condition of the most of the
farmers is poor because they are not getting the justified price of the product due to poor
harvested management facility. About 47 to 48% percent of farmers cultivate cabbage, beans,
onion,tomato, potato, brinjal, peas etc. But, exist period of them are very limited after
harvesting. Similarly, fruits have also limited life after harvesting. Hence, technology those
improves the life of food article after post harvesting are urgently required.
According to Indian rural development planning report, India is one of the largest producer of
fruit and vegetables in the world scenario but the productivity and availability of fruits and
vegetables per capita is significantly low due to post-harvest loses which account for about
25% to 30% of production. Further, the quality of sizeable quantity of produces also
deteriorates the moment it reaches the consumers. This happens because of perishable nature
of the fruits and vegetables. If consumption is not stabilized, the farmers switch over the
other crops instead of going for one crop in the subsequent year, and cycle continues. Our
farmers will remain poor even though they take to cultivate high value fruits and vegetables
year after year. Introduction of cold storage/cold room facility will help them in resolving the
risk of distress sale and simultaneously will ensure more profit. The yearly production of agro
products in the country accounts are 18% to 20% of our agriculture output. Multifarious agro
climatic conditions and better availability of scientific packages of practices, there is a vast
scope with better results for increasing the productivity. The lack of cold storage facilities is
the main bottlenecks in tapping the potential. Introduction of an efficient cold storage/cold
chain facility in the country can prove to be a boon for horticulture farmers.

1. INTRODUCTION

Cold storage works on the principle of refrigeration and air conditioning to maintain a
required room temperature and humidity. In this, the room temperature and humidity at which
we place the perishable vegetables and fruits are such maintained that they remain fresh.
Generally in literature [1] its values are as room temperature=3-4 oC and relative humidity
should be 95%. Cold Storage has a large impact on industry, lifestyle and agriculture [2].
According to recent reports India loses around 15% of its total food production just because
of the insufficient spaces in the cold stores, thus cold storages with great efficiencies are
highly acceptable.
India produce of fruits and vegetables is worth Rs.13,300 crores every year is wasted because
of the country's lack of adequate cold storage facilities, from the total production of
Rs.44,000 crores annually," according to data compiled in a report by Emerson Climate
Technologies India 2013[2]. Authorities have failed in providing cold room facilities to the
farmers and because of that almost 33% of the total production goes in vain.
As very less research is done in this field and the data which is available is scattered. So the
objective of this report is going for the modelling of cold store using CFD. As it is impossible
to do practical modelling of cold store .So we moved towards CFD software with which we
will design the cold store in such a way that its efficiency can be increased and manufacturing
cost can be reduced for the betterment of farmers and countries economy.

1.1 Cold Store

A cold store is a building where food products like fruits and vegetables are being stored for
variable lengths of time to avoid their deterioration under restrained conditions of
temperature and humidity. Cold stores are designed to have good thermal insulation. Cold
stores can also be designed to provide a certain atmosphere by controlling the concentration
of various gases in the cold store which favour the longtime preservation of food products.
Cold stores play a very vital role in the storage of agro products in the food delivery chains.
The quality and nutritional values of the food products starts falling down once it is
harvested. To avoid decreasing quality and nutritional values the food products should be
stored in cold stores under suitable temperature and humidity conditions.
When food products are harvested they are cut off from their source of nutrition and water
and thus soon they start losing their colour, texture, nutrition and appeal, so its very
important to store them under right temperature and humidity conditions in a cold store. 65%

of the Indian population is engaged in agriculture and farming. As a result of this 40% of the
national income originates from agriculture. India on an average produces nearly 137 million
tonnes of fruits and vegetables every year. India produces 6.5 million tonnes of poultry and
meat and 6.1 million tonnes of fish every year. India can be the worlds largest food supplier
but just because of inadequate amount of cold storage 35% of the total agro production loses
its quality and thus becomes of no use. Thus, cold stores have a great use thus resulting in
better output

1.2 Application of CFD technique

The use of computers in conjunction with the experimental facilities, are an ideal interaction,
which enhances the analysis of fluid dynamics. The CFD techniques are helpful in obtaining
predictions of velocity and temperature distribution of indoor air that has an important role in
improving design of ventilation systems. Fukuyo [3] applied the computational simulation to
find the relationship between occupations and thermal comfort within working environments.
The results have shown that the creation of an automatic control system for the cooling
system in conjunction with preventive maintenance scheduled by the technical support would
be the ideal way of improving system efficiency. Jian et [4], used computational tools to preanalyze projects of the entry and exit positions for the air flows inside air conditioned
environments, which helped in to study the air flow pattern under different circumstances in
cold rooms.
The application of computational fluid dynamics in the agricultural sector is becoming
increasingly important. Over the years, the versatility, ease of use and accuracy offered by the
CFD led to its wider acceptance within the agricultural engineering community. Besides the
refrigerated storage, the CFD is now regularly used to solve environmental problems in
greenhouse and livestock facilities. Ho et [5] who studied the distribution of air pressure and
temperature inside a cold chamber concluded that the addition of evaporators, which increase
the air flow, will help to minimize the temperature fluctuations so, basically CFD is a
technique which helps us in better understanding of problems.

1.3 Objective:

The objective of this project is to do the modelling of a cold storage using CFD. As its very
difficult to do various experiments on an actual cold storage, therefore Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) is being used for the modelling of cold storage. The actual experiments are
not feasible due to economical reasons. Moreover no cold storage is made for experimental
purposes and so its not feasible to do the research on a working cold storage.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
In the early 1700 people used to harvest ice for refrigeration purpose .In 1755 Scottish
professor WILLIAM CULLEN designed a first refrigerating machine. He used a pump to
create a partial vacuum over a container of diethyl ether, which then boiled, absorbing the
heat from the surrounding air [6]. The experiment was successful but failed to create large
amount of ice.
In 1758, Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley the two chemistry professors of Cambridge
university ,England has collaborated on a project investigating the principle of evaporator as
a mean to rapidly cool an object .They confirmed that the use of highly volatile materials like
alcohol, could be used to reduce the temperature.
Research continued ,engineers made many attempts but resulted in no gain .Then in 1859 the
first gas absorption refrigeration system using gaseous ammonia dissolved in water, was
developed by Ferdinend Casse of France.

Figure 2.1: FERDINAND CARRES REFRIGERATION MACHINE[8]

Ashish S. Utage, K.V. Mali and A.D. Kadam (2013) studied the performance simulation of
cold storage using energyplus. They described the construction of a cold store as follows:
PART
External walls of

MATERIAL
Solid concrete blocks with sand cement plaster painted with white

cold chambers
Zonal partition

colour.
Solid concrete blocks with three layers of expanded polystyrene

walls
Roof

(EPS) insulation and a layer of Aluminium.

The roof is made of RCC slab and is provided with good

Floors
Machine room

waterproofing. It is also given a slope to ensure rainwater drainage.

Floors are made up of base concrete.
The machine room of a cold storage is made up of solid concrete
wall with sand cement plaster painted with light colour.
Table 2.1: Various parts and materials of cold storage [6]

Along with the material used they also studied about the thickness of the various components
of different walls, floor, and ceiling. Based on their studies the wall of a cold chamber
comprises of a 2 cm thick layer of concrete followed by a 15 cm layer of Expanded
polystyrene (EPS) layer and a 1 mm thick layer of Aluminium. The construction of roof for
both cold chambers and doc room is same. The floor of the cold chambers is made up of a 20
cm layer of concrete which is being followed up by a 12.5 cm thick layer of Ethylene
Polystyrene (EPS) insulation. Lower the K value (thermal conductivity), better the insulation
[ ]. The thermal conductivity of Expanded Polystyrene is greater than that of Polyureathene
Foam, because of this PUF proves to be a better insulator than EPS.
The researchers also studied the effect of change of insulating material and its thickness on
the power consumption of the cold storage. They came up with the result that smaller the
thermal conductivity (K value) of the insulating material lesser will be the power
consumption of the cold storage. During their study they put into consideration EPS
insulation thickness at 100 mm, 125 mm and 150 mm, where as in the case of PUF based
insulation they put into consideration just 100 mm thick layer of the insulating material. The
researchers explained the effect by using graphs:

Figure 2.2: Graph between insulation thickness and power consumption [6]

A phase-change material (PCM) is a substance with a high heat of fusion which, melting and
solidifying at a certain temperature, is capable of storing and releasing large amounts of
energy. Heat is absorbed or released when the material changes from solid to liquid and vice
versa; thus, PCMs are classified as latent heat storage (LHS) units [6].
MD Mansoor Ahmed, J Kannakuma and P Mallikarjun Reddy (2013) studied the phase
change material (PCM) and came up with the conclusion that installation of phase change
material (PCM) in a cold store would dramatically decrease the temperature rise occurring in
the cold storage chambers during the power cuts. They also discovered that while using phase
change material (PCM) they were able to keep the temperature of the cold storage constant at
-8oC for 8 hours during a power cut, whereas without the application of phase change
material (PCM) the temperature rose continuously from -8 oC within an hour only. This was
demonstrated by them with the help of the graphs given below:

Figure:3 , graph showing variation of temperature without PCM[ 6]

Fig: Graph showing variation of temperature with the application of PCM [6]

Thus the above shown graphs are showing the variation on temperature conditions inside a
cold chamber with or without the application of PCM.

3. MODELLING
The cases which have been studied are for a room which can be utilized for a cold storage.
The recommended specifications are such that the walls of the room are highly insulated. The
conditions of the room are such that it does not let the decomposition of the perishable fruits
and vegetable. It should have adequate ventilation and humidity.
3.1 Case Study
For making it simple, the effects due to radiation and internal heat generation have not been
considered. The cold storage is taken to be a room of dimensions (17*22*12 m3) The cool air
is assumed to be entering the room at a high velocity through a circular entrance of diameter
4 m. This inlet circular hole is situated at the roof surface of the cold storage. The outlet for
the room has been another circular hole of diameter 4 m present on a wall perpendicular to
the roof. The temperature and velocity profile has been obtained. The contours for thermal
flow have been taken. The temperature of the supplied air is kept constant throughout. The
process is done by taking 2 cases, one in which inlet temperature of the air was given 273K
and another case in which it was taken 268K.

Inlet Hole

Outlet Hole

4. BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
In the present work the computation of the cold storage airflow is done by micro model. The
micro models are characterized as finite volume or finite element procedures. The governing
equations given in the previous chapter are solved by finite volume technique with the help of
CFD based software Fluent. In computational fluid dynamics, such packages contain the
following three elements:
Grid generation
CFD Solution
Post processing
4.1 Grid Generation
This element involves
Definition of geometry of the region of interest;
Grid generation or meshing on the elements.
In the present study, pre-processor is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package. The
geometry of the Cold Storage is created and the faces are created to serve as supply opening
and exhaust. The regular faces of the room walls and the supply and exhaust opening in the
whole geometry are meshed as quadrilateral elements. The room volume comprises of
mixed cells. The critical elements like the supply and the exhaust opening surfaces are later
on adapted in the solver Fluent. After the meshing operation, the various boundary types
and continuum types are defined and finally the meshed domain is exported to the solver.
4.2 CFD Solution
The pre-processor transfers the whole geometry and the meshed domain to the solver. Here
solver is a programme code FLUENT 6.2. It uses a control-volume based technique to
convert the governing equations to algebraic equations that can be solved numerically. This
control volume technique consists of integrating the governing equations about each control
volume, yielding discrete equations that conserve each quantity on a control-volume basis.

This solver provides three different formulations:

Segregated
coupled implicit
coupled explicit
All three solver formulations will provide accurate results for a broad range of flows, but in
some cases one formulation may perform better (i.e., yield a solution more quickly) than the
others. The segregated and coupled approaches differ in the way that the continuity,
momentum, and (where appropriate) energy and species equations are solved: the segregated
solver solves these equations sequentially (i.e., segregated from one another), while the
coupled solver solves them simultaneously (i.e., coupled together). The implicit and explicit
coupled solvers differ in the way that they linearize the coupled equations. The segregated
solver traditionally has been used for incompressible and mildly compressible flows. The
coupled approach, on the other hand, was originally designed for high-speed compressible
flows. Both approaches are now applicable to a broad range of flows (from incompressible to
highly compressible), but the origins of the coupled formulation may give it a performance
advantage over the segregated solver for high-speed compressible flows. By default, Fluent
uses the segregated solver, but for high-speed compressible flows (as discussed above),
highly coupled flows with strong body forces (e.g., buoyancy or rotational forces), or flows
being solved on very fine meshes, you may want to consider the coupled implicit solver
instead. This solver couples the flow and energy equations, which often results in faster
solution convergence. A trade-of involved in the use of the coupled implicit solver is that it
requires more memory (1.5 to 2 times) than the segregated solver. The mesh received is
checked for consistency and smoothness. The dimensions are scaled in case they have been
specified in a system other than SI. Thereafter, a suitable model is chosen for the analysis of
the problem. In the present work, the model chosen is implicit segregated k-e for Turbulence.
The Boundary conditions are given for the different zones created in the defined geometry. In
the present work, the different zones considered are: volume of the room (air), the faces of
the room (wall), inlet (velocity inlet) and outlet (pressure-outlet). Apart from these zones,
some more iso-surfaces have been created to analyze the flow properties in specifically
critical planes. Finally, the solver is instructed to carry out the computation until the solution
converges after a number of iterations, which is characteristic of the complexity of the
domain and the size and type of meshing chosen.

4.3 Post Processing

This is the visualization tool for the flow fields. The results obtained by the solver are
transferred here and are observed by means of profiles, contours and graphs. It includes:
Domain geometry and grid display
Vector plots, line and filled contour plots
2D and 3D surface plots and particle tracking etc.
4.4 Boundary Conditions
The boundary and initial conditions are very critical to the solution of a problem, and
therefore, have to be specified very carefully.
4.4.1 Models
The model chosen for the airflow field is 3-D Standard k-e model with Standard Wall
Functions and the following default settings for the constants:
Cmu = 0.09, C1- Epsilon = 1.44, C2 Epsilon = 1.92, TKE Prandtl Number = 1, TDR
Prandtl Number = 1.3, Energy Prandtl Number = 0.85 and Wall Prandtl Number = 0.85.
4.4.2 Materials
(1) Air
Domain is filled with air with the following properties:
Density = 1.225 kg/m3
Cp = 1006.43 J/kg-K
Thermal Conductivity = 0.0242 W/m-K
Viscosity = 1.7894 X 10-05 kg/m-s.

(2) Room walls

Concrete (CaO 60-61%), EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) and Aluminium Foil has been selected
as the wall material.
Cumulative Density = 1459.3 kg/m3
Cp = 856 J/kg-K and
Thermal Conductivity = 7.99 W/m-K.
4.4.3 Operating conditions
Operating pressure = 101325 Pa
Accelerating due to gravity = -9.81 m/s2
Operating Temperature = 276 K
4.4.4 Boundary condition values
Exhaust
Gauge Pressure

12

Backflow Total Temperature

300

Backflow Turbulence Intensity

0.02

Backflow Turbulent Viscosity Ratio

10

Escape
Discrete Phase BC Type
Table 4.1: Exhaust conditions

Supply

Normal to the boundary

Velocity Specification Method Magnitude,
Velocity Magnitude

0.30000001 m/s

Angular velocity

Temperature

298 K

Turbulence Intensity

0.02

Turbulent Viscosity Ratio

10

Discrete Phase BC Type

Escape

Table 4.2: Supply conditions.

Relaxation factors
Pressure

0.30000001

Density

Body Forces

Momentum

0.69999999

Turbulence Kinetic Energy

0.80000001

Table 4.3: Relaxation factors

Discretization scheme
Pressure

Standard

Momentum

First Order Upwind

Turbulence

Kinetic Energy First Order Upwind

Turbulence Dissipation Rate

First Order Upwind

Energy

First Order Upwind

Table 4.4: Discretization schemes

Solution limits
Quantity

Limit

Minimum Absolute Pressure

Maximum Absolute Pressure

5Xe10

Minimum Temperature

Maximum Temperature

4000

Minimum Turbulence Kinetic Energy

1Xe-14

Minimum Turbulence Dissipation Rate

1Xe-20

Maximum Turbulence. Viscosity Ratio

100000

Table 4.5: Solution limits

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This section of the report deals with the results of the simulations carried on the Cold Storage
Room. The inlet temperature is varied and thus two cases are formed.
Velocity Profiles when inlet air is at 273K
Figure1 shows the velocity profile when considered in X direction.

Figure 5.1 Velocity Contour (X-Direction)

Figure No. 5.2 shows the velocity profile when considered in Y direction.

Figure 5.2 Velocity profile (Y-Direction)

Figure No. 5.3 shows the velocity contour when considered in Z direction.

Figure 5.3 Velocity profile (Z-Direction)

Figure 5.4 shows the temperature contour of the cold store room, when the inlet temperature
was 273 K and the outlet temperature was 295 K.

Figure 5.4 Temperature Profile (273K Inlet)

Figure: 5.5 shows that the temperature contours of the cold store room, when the inlet
temperature was 268 K and the outlet temperature was 295 K.

Figure 5.5 Temperature Profile (Inlet at 268K)

5. SCOPE FOR FUTURE WORK

The present modeling and analysis do not give any significant result, since the period allotted
for the project work was mostly consumed in learning the Computational Fluid Dynamics
and analyzing software Fluent. The project is a research based project and will be continued
with inclusion of various factors like radiation, self heat generation by fruits and vegetables
within the cold storage and use of various materials like Phase Change Material (PCM) as the
walls of Cold Storage. The design of the cold storage will be complex and more realistic.