Novel air duct cooling performance evaluation for the refrigerated product transport in a semi-trailer cabin

Abstract

In this paper, two different airflow ducts were designed to improve the cooling performance of the semi-trailers cabin that was frequently used for transporting frozen and fresh products or for the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine packs. The airflow analysis was achieved by using the three-dimensional transient computational fluid dynamics method and also an experimental study including temperature measurements was performed for getting reference data to compare the numerical results. The detailed airflow and temperature analyses in the semi-trailers cabin were presented and discussed. It is observed that the developed innovative airflow channels not only provide the desired uniform temperature distribution inside the cabin but also significantly reduce the time interval to reach the required mean cooling temperature. The total cooling time from 303 K (30°C) to 253 K (-20°C) in the cabin had been reduced to 50% compared to the one without using the airflow duct. The presented experimental and numerical results can be used as a reference for further similar studies.