Numerical Modeling of the Ventilation System for a Cooler Room

The goal of the present work was to perform a thermal and fluid dynamic analysis of a refrigerated warehouse used for cheese conservation and ripening at a cheese factory close to the city of Cagliari. Air cooling is obtained by means of cooling units located under the cooler rooms ceiling, where the air distribution is realized by means of tubular pipes made of micro-porous material. An electronic control system allows keeping temperature and humidity within the desired range. As a first step, in order to verify the operation of the cooling system, an investigation was performed through a numerical simulation of the 3D and turbulent flow within the warehouse by solving the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations; this task was performed by employing the commercial code Fluent. The simulation allowed to represent the temperature and the velocity maps of the air flow inside the cooler room; the most relevant result mainly consists of a strong temperature gradient along the vertical direction. Some possible interventions for improving the air distribution are also suggested.