Abstract
The use of protected agriculture structures in tropical and subtropical countries is the main alternative for intensification of agricultural production selected by producers. In general, in these regions, passive and plastic-covered structures predominate, with natural ventilation as the only method of climate control. This phenomenon has been widely studied in different types of structures using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. Therefore, this review aimed to collect and analyze the publications generated in this field of knowledge between 2010 and 2020. The search for information included the main academic databases available on the web and the analysis was carried out using bibliometric techniques, from which it was possible to identify details inherent to the scientific production, such as countries of origin, main authors, journals, and citations. Likewise, a detailed breakdown of the relevant technical information of the three phases of numerical simulation, such as preprocessing, processing, and postprocessing, was carried out. A compilation of 118 papers published in 65 journals, written by 256 authors, originating from 24 countries was achieved, where it was evident that Mexico and Colombia were the countries with the highest scientific production in the last decade. These papers analyzed, together, a total of 17 different types of structures where polyethylene-covered greenhouses predominated, with steady state simulations, for daytime climate conditions and without the presence of crops. Within the current and future research trends, the predominance of studies analyzing passive climate control methods, new models of insect-proof mesh-house structures, and, finally, studies focused on the structural analysis of greenhouses was found.
Highlights
Population growth projections show that by the year 2050, there could be approximately 9.1 billion people on planet Earth [1,2]
To evaluate the impact of the journals in which the selected studies were published, information was identified through the SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SJR), reviewing the H-index value, which relates the number of citations based on the number of articles published, and the quartile position in Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) was reviewed
The total number of articles for the period analyzed was 118 articles, which translated into an average value of 10.72 published articles per year
Summary
Population growth projections show that by the year 2050, there could be approximately 9.1 billion people on planet Earth [1,2]. They only allow users to obtain a numerical value of the ventilation rate, but do not allow visualization and understanding of the movements of the air flows [20,30] For some of these reasons, and taking into account the progress of engineering tools, in recent years, the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been proposed as an agile and accurate alternative for the study of natural ventilation in protected agricultural structures [31,32]. The CFD methodology, implemented as a design tool with the objective to improve the efficiency of natural ventilation in greenhouses or protected agricultural structures, has achieved a great recognition worldwide This is reflected in the number of studies that have been developed related to this topic [17,41,42,43]. The main objective of this work was to develop a bibliometric and technical analysis through the compilation of scientific information reported in the main databases of studies related to the use of CFD applied to the analysis of natural ventilation in passive protected agricultural structures in tropical and subtropical geographic regions
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