Effect of Vent Position on Temperature Inhomogeneity Inside Apple Storage Package: A Numerical Study

To maintain the shelf life of horticulture products, the product is pre-cooled by forced air pre-cooling technique before the final storage or transportation. Optimization of the ventilation of the packaging systems is essential to improve cooling uniformity. Optimization of the packaging box design depends on vent size, area, and location. The present study is concerned with the location of the vent holes in the pre-cooling of apples. A 3-D CFD model is developed based on the existing package. Numerical simulations are performed to study the pre-cooling process. The location of the vent holes from the vertical edges of the package is varied from 6 to 8 cm. The obtained results indicated that the location of vent holes on the package significantly affects the cooling performance. It is found that vent holes kept at 8 cm away from the vertical edge of the package show better cooling performance for the other two configurations. It is also observed that temperature inhomogeneity reduces by 25.8% without rise in the energy consumption.