Application of heat transfer analysis for frozen food storage caverns

Abstract

Supply of high quality preserved food products has always been very important. Storage of food in underground caverns is superior over food storage tanks constructed at surface from an energy conservation point of view. There are a lot of underground openings excavated in tuff used for the storage of fruits and vegetables at the Cappadocia Region of Turkey. However, there has not been any attempt to use these underground openings for deep frozen food storage and related heat transfer details. The main purpose of this work was to investigate underground food storage openings in the Cappadocia Region and their potential use for frozen food storage. Details of heat transfer around openings for various geometrics in three-dimensional have been modelled by using a finite element software package called MARC. For the sake of comparison, heat transfer details around a similar opening excavated in granite were also determined. A comparison of underground caverns excavated in tuff and granite with a surface deep freeze storage tank was also made by both taking construction and operational costs into account. Construction of an underground deep freeze storage cavern excavated in tuff would cost one half of a same size surface tank whereas, energy loss due to heat transfer is three times lower in the favour of underground storage cavern opened in tuff.