CU1801

CASEstudy
Chilling out
IES digs out the cold facts about industrial fridges using CFD
IES is well known for its building
performance application, IESVE and VE
2017, that analyse the environmental
impact of a building project. When you
think about it, the mathematics that go
into solving problems like carbon
emissions, heating requirements and
other factors that determine whether a
building is going to meet sustainable
targets, are not too dissimilar to the
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
studies outlined here.
The CFD analysis also illustrates the
level of detail addressed, mainly focused
on what happens when a door is opened
that separates an extreme environment
from a normal one.
DOVER WESTERN DOCKS REVIVAL
In the first case study, IES Consulting
were commissioned to perform internal
an CFD analysis to study the transient
variation in temperature in the refrigerated
chilled storage rooms for the Dover
Western Docks Revival project, for
instance the variation in temperature
when doors are kept open to the outside
for a considerable period of time.
IES Consultants carried out two types of
analysis on this project: Steady State
analysis to look at general operation of
the system and transient analysis for the
worst case scenario of how things can
change. The Steady State CFD simulation
studied the general distribution of airflow
and temperature within the Refrigerated
Chilled Store and the adjoining loading
space of the proposed Dover Port
Western Docks Revival project. This was
followed by a transient CFD simulation,
where the external doors were set to open
to outside conditions of 28 o C with a wind
speed of 8.23m/s, and air curtains
switched on.
The Steady State study simulation
showed that the temperature in the
refrigerated chilled store was observed to
be in the range of 12°C to 13°C. The
temperature in the Inload Bay was
observed to be around 26°C. Under the
normal operating conditions, the
Refrigerated Chilled Store shows quite an
even distribution of temperature.
In the transient analysis, the average
temperature was observed to stabilise
around 18.5°C for the refrigerated chilled
store after six and half minutes. Within the
refrigerated chilled store it was noted to
vary from 25°C near the open doors to
about 18°C at the back of the room.
REGENERON BULK BIOLOGICS
The second case study looked at what
happens when you open the door to a
chilled environment, and the effect of
different periods of its opening. IES
Consulting was commissioned to perform
the analysis for a GMP cold room in the
Regeneron Bulk Biologics facility in
Limerick, Ireland. The analysis looked at
different operation scenarios of the cold
room.
The performance of the GMP cold room
within the Regeneron Bulk Biologics
facility was analysed under various
conditions. A Steady State CFD
simulation was carried out to look at the
general operation scenario. It was
observed that the temperature in the GMP
cold room was between 3 o C to 6 o C.
A dynamic CFD simulation was
performed with 'product' cooling from
21 o C to 2 o C across a period of 12 hours.
A combination of steady and dynamic
CFD simulations assessed a scenario
where the door was closed after being
open for an extended period of time. It
was observed that the flow patterns in the
GMP cold room prevented the average
temperature of the cold room increasing
beyond 6 o C. The opening of the door
increased the temperature only in the
immediate vicinity of the doors.
A further dynamic CFD simulation
assessed a scenario where a door was
opened for only a short period of 10
seconds. The results indicated a similar
scenario to the one described above. The
average temperature of the cold room did
not go beyond 5 o C. The warm air coming
in through the door remained localised to
the region near the door and quickly
dissipated after the door was closed. A
dynamic CFD simulation was performed
to look at switchover from the 'Run'
evaporators to the standby evaporators.
The switchover caused average
temperatures to increase by 5 o C when all
the evaporators were off.
MSD CARLOW, IRELAND
MSD Carlow is a pharmaceutical
warehouse in Ireland. IES Consulting were
commissioned to perform internal CFD
analysis to study the performance of the
cooling systems within the cold rooms at
the Facility. This consisted of a set of
three rooms with different set points being
simulated together to see how the
interaction takes place when the door
opens to the outside versus door opens
to either of the inside rooms etc.
A very comprehensive analysis of the
cooling system was carried out. Steady
State CFD simulations were performed to
study the airflow patterns within the three
interconnected chilled rooms of the MSD
Carlow warehouse to study the cooling
systems installed in chilled rooms. Three
scenarios were analysed:
All main cooling units were operational
All standby cooling units were
operational
Two rooms with the main units were
operational, one with standby unit
operational and with a forklift present
in each room.
Maintaining temperatures in chilled
warehouses is critical. It brings to mind,
however, other scenarios requiring cold
environments to be maintained, such as
data centres with banks of servers.
www.iesve.com
20
January/February 2018