Investigation of the entrainment and infiltration rates through air curtains of open low-front refrigerated display cabinets

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityThe high energy demand associated with open multi-deck refrigerated display cabinets is a direct consequence of their open design. The interaction between the cold refrigerated air inside the cabinet and the relatively warm air of the supermarket takes place across the air curtain, which serves as a non-physical barrier between the customers and the products. It has been estimated that 70% to 80% of the cabinet’s cooling load is due to ambient air infiltration into the cabinet refrigeration apparatus, which was previously entrained through the descending air curtain. A new generation of display cabinets has immerged in recent years, where the display-to-floor area has increased for the sake of maximizing sales. This modification leaves the air curtain with a larger display opening to seal against. Therefore, the design of such cabinets has now become more challenging, especially when attempting to ensure product integrity and temperature homogeneity while attempting to minimize their energy consumption. In this work, advanced numerical and experimental techniques have been integrated to quantify and also minimize the entrainment rate through the air curtain and the infiltration rate into open low-front refrigerated display cabinets. Experimentally, the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique has been used to map the velocity profile along the air curtain while the Infrared (IR) Thermography technique has been used to map the temperature profile across the cabinet. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique has been used in both case and parametric studies after confirming its validation with experiment. CFD was found to be a valuable tool for the simulation of open low-front refrigerated display cabinets, and the credibility of the results was assured when the boundary conditions were fine-tuned by experimental data. This thesis has demonstrated a systematic procedure where the entrainment rate through the air curtain can be quantified. The effect of various Discharge Air Grille (DAG) parameters was studied, and it was found that the entrainment rate is highly sensitive to the velocity profile and magnitude at the DAG. A velocity profile with a ramp shape having the maximum velocity near the cabinet yielded the minimum entrainment rate, hence the cabinet cooling load was reduced. In addition, two techniques were introduced for the determination of the infiltration rate of the cabinet. The first utilises the tracer-gas method to determine the specific amounts of ambient dry air and water vapour entering the evaporator coil, and the second uses psychrometrics to quantify the infiltration load as well as the other cooling load components by identifying the various heat transfer processes encountered during the operation of the cabinet. The ambient air infiltrated into the cabinet, although corresponds to 31% of the total mass flow rate, was found to be responsible for at least 85% of the total cooling load of the cabinet. This indicates that low-front cabinet suffer more from infiltration. The contribution of this work is by providing a better understanding towards the entrainment and infiltration processes related to open refrigerated display cabinets. The new techniques introduced in this work can help designers to better assess the impact of different design parameters and quantify the amounts of the entrainment and infiltration rates associated with open low-front refrigerated display cabinets

A database of static clothing thermal insulation and vapor permeability values of non-western ensembles for use in ASHRAE Standard 55, ISO 7730, and ISO 9920: Discussion

A database of static clothing thermal insulation and vapor permeability values of non-western ensembles for use in ASHRAE Standard 55, ISO 7730, and ISO 9920: Discussio

Histological and Biochemical Effects of Diazinon on Liver and Kidney of Rabbits.

Abstract: The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of diazinon on histological and biochemical aspect of liver and kidney of rabbit. Diazinon induced blood vessel congestion, leucocytic infiltrations in the liver parenchyma in addition to cytoplasmic vacuolation, fatty degeneration and pyknotic nuclei in the hepatocytes. On the other hand, renal damage was observed in the kidneys of treated rabbits. Renal tissues showed hypertrophied glomeruli, destructive of its lining epithelia. Renal blood vessels were congested and the inter-tubular spaces were filled with red blood cells. Biochemical investigation proved that treatment with diazinon for 4 weeks induced a significant increase in ALT, AST, creatinine and blood urea. Finally, the investigators concluded that diazinon toxicity induced hepatocellular and renal damage

Thermodynamic Models for Vapor-Liquid Equilibria of Nitrogen+Oxygen+Carbon Dioxide at Low Temperatures

For the design and optimization of CO2 recovery from alcoholic fermentation processes by distillation, models for vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) are needed. Two such thermodynamic models, the Peng-Robinson equation of state (EOS) and a model based on Henry's law constants, are proposed for the ternary mixture N2+O2+CO2. Pure substance parameters of the Peng-Robinson EOS are taken from the literature, whereas the binary parameters of the Van der Waals one-fluid mixing rule are adjusted to experimental binary VLE data. The Peng-Robinson EOS describes both binary and ternary experimental data well, except at high pressures approaching the critical region. A molecular model is validated by simulation using binary and ternary experimental VLE data. On the basis of this model, the Henry's law constants of N2 and O2 in CO2 are predicted by molecular simulation. An easy-to-use thermodynamic model, based on those Henry's law constants, is developed to reliably describe the VLE in the CO2-rich region