Numerical simulation and verification of airflow in cold-store

Recently, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been applied in many fields relating to fluid flow more frequently. It was testified that CFD was useful in these fields. It is important for the cooling rate and quality of foodstuffs in the cold store with the uniform flow and temperature field. But the flow field designed by using the original methods is not good enough. In this paper, a two-dimensional physical and turbulence mathematics model inside a minitype constructional cold store (4.5 m(l)×3.3 m(w)×2.5 m(h)) was established and a related computer program with SIMPLE algorithm and intervein girding technique was developed. The simulation results reflected the characteristics of airflow and temperature distribution. By simulation, there was a large circumfluence in flow field, which was harmful to cold storage of foodstuffs. The mainstream of flow field had the trend of closing to the wall. The velocity of mainstream had the trend of decreasing near the corner. After that, several design parameters (corner baffle, the stack mode of foodstuffs, etc) which would affect the flow field in the cold store were analyzed in this paper. The results of simulation indicates that all these design parameters especially the stack mode of foodstuffs have affected the flow field and temperature field inside the cold store greatly. It was found that CFD was a powerful tool to design and optimize the flow field in the cold store.