Simulation of the Transient Refrigeration Load in a Cold Storage for Apples and Pears

Abstract

ABSTRACT Increased consumer demand for fresh fruit throughout the year has created a need for long term storage. As storage periods of fresh commodities increase, especially through the use of controlled atmosphere environments, production costs increase. A BASICA computer program, RLSIM, was developed to predict the transient refrigeration load throughout the storage season in apple and pear cold storage warehouses. RLSIM accurately predicted the seasonal and component refrigeration system energy demand during the 1985-865 cold storage season. Results indicated that the largest single energy use component is continuous operation of the evaporator fans. Simulation of a six hours on and six hours off fan cycling scheme indicated a reduction of 23.75% could be achieved in overall refrigeration system energy use in the cold storage warehouse used..