ABSTRACT. The present paper targets to investigate the effect of the storage temperature inside a cold storage room on the air infiltration through its door during an opening period for the purpose of loading or unloading the cold room. A laboratory scale model consists of a prefabricated sandwiched panel walls room of inside dimensions (1.5 x 1.5 x 2) m with two doors each of dimensions (0.80 x 1.10) m prepared and operated with a suitable refrigeration machine to achieve the required storage temperatures. Air curtain is a cheap and clean solution which ensure ease of movement through an open door of a cold room and decreases air infiltration The present work highlights the importance of using an air curtain as a protection method for reducing warm air infiltration into the cold storage rooms. The results show that mapping temperature contours across the open door is important to describe the effect of air infiltration into the cold room through its open door. The overall temperature inside the cold room increases rapidly during the opening period. Lower storage temperature is much more affected by infiltration of air into the room, which lead to operate the machine much more time to regain the initial storage temperature. Applying an air curtain of 6 m/s horizontal jet reduces the recovery time required by about 30 % which shows an importance of using a protection device especially for low storage temperature. |
