Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

A review of computational fluid dynamics for forced-air cooling process

Chun-Jiang Zhao a,⇑, Jia-Wei Han a,b, Xin-Ting Yang a, Jian-Ping Qian a, Bei-Lei Fan a
a
National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing 100097, China
b
College of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China

h i g h l i g h t s

We review the fundamentals of applying CFD to precooling of fresh produce.

We summarize the parameters used to analyze packaging performance.

We review recent studies that focus on optimizing the design of fresh produce packaging.

We discuss various challenging issues.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Optimizing the design of fresh produce packaging is vital for ensuring that future food cold chains are
Received 16 December 2015 more energy efficient and for improving produce quality by avoiding chilling injuries due to nonuniform
Received in revised form 25 January 2016 cooling. Computational fluid dynamics models are thus increasingly used to study the airflow patterns
Accepted 28 January 2016
and heat transfer inside ventilated packaging during precooling. This review discusses detailed and com-
Available online 10 February 2016
prehensive mathematical modeling procedures for simulating the airflow, heat transfer, and mass trans-
fer that occurs during forced-air precooling of fresh produce. These models serve to optimize packaging
Keywords:
design and cooling efficiency. We summarize the most commonly used parameters for performance,
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Numerical analysis
which allows us to directly compare the cooling performance of various packaging designs.
Porous medium Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Forced-air precooling
Package

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
2. Fundamentals of computational fluid dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
2.1. Governing equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
2.2. Discretization schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
2.3. Pre-processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
2.4. Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
2.5. Post-processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
3. Applications of computational fluid dynamics to precooling of fresh produce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
3.1. Porous-medium approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
3.2. Airflow in porous media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
3.3. Heat and mass transfer in porous media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
3.3.1. Single-phase models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
3.3.2. Two-phase models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
3.4. Direct computational fluid dynamics simulations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
3.4.1. Airflow, heat- and mass-transfer models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
4. Parameters used to analyze package performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
4.1. Cooling time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
4.2. Cooling rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 51503092; fax: +86 10 51503750.

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (C.-J. Zhao).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.01.101
0306-2619/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 315

4.3. Cooling uniformity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

4.4. Energy consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
4.5. Mechanical strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
5. Future developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
5.1. Physical-parameter estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
5.2. Model validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
5.3. Energy conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

1. Introduction In recent years, an increasing effort [12,17,28–32] has been

devoted to in-depth studies and analyses of the characteristics of
Even after separation from the parent plant, fresh horticultural airflow and heat transfer inside ventilated packaging during pre-
produce (e.g., fruits and vegetables) is composed of living dynamic cooling. These studies were based on laboratory experiments,
systems [1]. The respiration and transpiration of living biological numerical simulations (e.g., Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD),
entities results in a loss of the organic material and moisture from or a combination of both. The aim of these studies was to improve
these systems. In general, these alterations result in the degrada- packaging design, ensure rapid and uniform cooling of agricultural
tion of the quality of agro-products and limit their shelf life [2,3], products, avoid hot spots, and prevent cold damage. Table 1 sum-
to the detriment of transregional and transnational long-distance marizes the recent studies on precooling of fresh produce and
sales of fresh produce and of the economic performance of the packaging design. During precooling, the complexity of the cold-
entire cold chain. The physiological changes due to respiration, air movement inside a single fruit-packing crate or through the
transpiration, and biosynthesis are affected by intrinsic (i.e., entire ensemble of goods renders difficult the task of measuring
the thermal properties of the produce or climacteric vs. non- temperature variations solely via field tests. As a result, obtaining
climacteric commodities) and extrinsic (i.e., temperature, detailed information on the local airflow rate and heat- and
concentration of ethylene, O2, and CO2) factors [1,4], of which mass-transfer processes within complex packaging structures is a
temperature is the single most important environmental factor serious challenge. In addition, extending the test cycle requires sig-
affecting the deterioration rate and postharvest lifetime of produce nificant human and material resources.
[5–8]. To ensure the quality and safety of horticultural products The last two decades, however, has seen enormous advances in
and extend their storage and shelf life across the entire cold chain, computing power and commercial CFD codes to meet the sophisti-
a critical step in the postharvest cold chain is rapid precooling after cated modelling requirements of the food-processing industry
harvest to remove field heat [9–12]. In this way, horticultural pro- (e.g., drying, cooking, sterilization, chilling, cold storage, etc.). Thus,
duce is cooled from the harvest temperature to an optimal temper- the above-mentioned difficulties can be reduced or avoided by
ature, which slows the physiological activities within the produce, using numerical CFD simulations to create three-dimensional
reduces disease development and weight loss by transpiration, and spatio-temporal distributions of airflow and temperature during
minimizes the destruction of the pigments, colors, texture, and precooling [33–40].
nutrients [13–16]. Thus, precooling fruits and vegetables after har- Despite this vast amount of research on packaging design for
vest effectively extends the shelf life of the produce and extends fresh horticultural produce, most researchers have concentrated
the sales zone, making it the most essential of all value-adding ser- mainly on a single unit of produce during precooling or on only
vices demanded by increasingly more sophisticated consumers one or a few particular functions of the packaging (e.g., cooling per-
[1,17,18]. formance or energy consumption). Thus, conflicting packaging
The performance and rate of the precooling process for fresh design requirements often result when multiple cold-chain opera-
produce depend on the packaging design (vent area, shape, num- tions or different functions are simultaneously targeted [10]. For
ber, position, etc.), the fruit-stacking pattern within the package, example, increasing the number of box vents and the air-inflow
the thermophysical properties, physiological mechanisms, air-to- speed can improve cooling rate, throughput, and cooling unifor-
produce initial temperature difference, air-to-produce final desired mity but compromises the mechanical strength of the packaging
temperature difference, produce geometry (size, shape, surface/ and induces more chilling injuries and moisture loss. Furthermore,
volume ratio, internal structure, etc.), and ambient relative humid- a preferential pathway is created when too many box vents are
ity [19,20]. All of these factors are important because they affect used because the airflow can easily bypass the produce, thereby
heat and mass transfer during the precooling process [2,9] and reducing the airflow rate through the produce and consequently
directly affect the uniformity of airflow and cooling as well as increasing the energy required for precooling [11]. Thus, to com-
energy consumption. Because packaging strongly impacts the prehensively evaluate the performance of ventilated packaging,
quality and shelf life of produce, the relatively low cost of packag- all functions of the packaging across the entire cold chain should
ing and the ease of altering its design [21,22] is one of most cost- be simultaneously assessed in future studies. In addition, future
effective ways to enhance rapid and uniform cooling of horticul- studies should also compare the cooling performance of packaging
tural produce, increase precooling throughput, reduce precooling designs as a function of how the produce is stacked on a pallet.
energy consumption, and prevent cold damage. For fresh, highly The goal of this paper is to review the current state of CFD as
perishable produce, packaging serves several purposes. It not only applied to the design of ventilated packaging for fresh produce.
promotes rapid and uniform precooling to quickly remove field Because new packaging can be evaluated from several viewpoints,
heat but also protects the produce from mechanical damage during we summarize herein the most commonly used performance
handling, processing, storage, and transport. Therefore, packaging parameters, which we use to quantitatively compare existing pack-
technology plays a critical role in transportation, preservation, aging with regard to each function separately or for multiple func-
and marketing of fresh produce [23–27]. tions at the same time. In addition, to improve the accuracy of CFD
316 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

Table 1
Summary of recent studies (2004–2015) that focus on evaluating packaging performance in cold chain for fresh horticultural produce.

Reference Material TD Method PPs

2004 [61,65] PVC & water/agar-agar filled spheres – Expt. HCT, CR, CU
Remark: Study how container opening area and airflow rate affect cooling efficiency. More open areas enhance the cooling efficiency; however,
the cooling efficiency does not significantly differ from the fully open condition by considering CR, CU, EC, and MS when container opening area
exceeds a specific value (a total opening area of 6% and 14% was recommended by Refs. [61,65], respectively). Airflow rate strongly affects HCT:
increasing the airflow rate can compensate for the negative effect of smaller opening area, but it raises the APD and EC
2004 [72] Apple & chicory Steady Porous medium & Expt. APD (i.e. EC)
Remark: Study how airflow velocity, shape, surface roughness and confinement ratio affect APD. For a confined batch of product, Eq. (9) is more
accurate than Eq. (4) [i.e., the error in the pressure drop predicted by Eqs. (4) and (9) are 65% and 20%, respectively]. The accuracy is further
improved by accounting for the shape and roughness of the product
2005 [9] PS – Expt. HCT
Remark: Study how area of container opening and airflow rate affect CT and APD. For the same total open area, the position does not influence
the air-approach velocity or APD, except when the number of holes varies. However, vent position has a significant effect on CU (similar results
were found by Dehghannya et al. [12,17,35])
2005 [66] PS – Expt. HCT, APD
Remark: Study how opening configuration, total area and position, and airflow rate affect overall cooling system efficiency and how produce
respiration rate affects energy consumption. The energy-added ratio (EAR) of the cooling process decreases as the opening area increases, but
only a slight decrease is observed when the opening area exceeds 8%. The lower EC is obtained with the holes distributed uniformly on the
package surface at specific airflow rates and respiration activity, compared with the holes distributed on the corners of the package surface
2005 [20] PS – Expt. CR
Remark: Study how airflow velocity affects cooling rate and determine the relationship between the two. Cooling rate of the produce simulator
correlates significantly with air-approach velocity when the individual cooling-rate-index effect is considered
2006 [120] Empty corrugated boxes – Expt. MS
Remark: Study how shape, position, and size of carrying slots affect the compressive strength of corrugated boxes. Of the various possible shapes,
circles reduce compressive strength the least. Furthermore, compressive strength of the board decreases as the slot position moves away from
the center of the board. Also, the smaller the slot size, the higher the compressive strength
2006 [141] PS – Expt. HCT, CU, APD
Remark: Study how package-opening configurations and airflow rate affect cooling efficiency and energy requirements of precooling system. For
packing low-respiration-rate produce, increasing airflow rate may compromise the process-energy efficiency because of air-circulation
obstruction for less-vented containers. For high-respiration-rate produce, to enhance the energy efficiency of cooling, enlarging the opening area
above 2.4% is recommended rather than increasing the airflow rate
2006 [91,98] Apple Steady & transient Porous medium & Expt. CU
Remark: Development and verification of CFD modeling, predict airflow patterns and temperature profiles in ventilated packaging systems
during cooling. In general, good agreement between the model predictions and the experimental data are obtained, and the lack of fits in certain
positions of the packaging system may be attributed to inaccurate temperature measurements and uncertainties in the data input into the model
2007 [69] Empty corrugated boxes – FEM & Expt. MS
Remark: Study how various vent- or hand-hole designs affect compression strength of box. To achieve a minimum decrease in box-compression
strength, the following factors should be considered: (1) Depth of the holes should be less than 1/4 of the depth of the box. (2) Ratio of width to
depth of holes should be 1/3.5–1/2.5. (3) Even-numbered holes should be positioned symmetrically
2007 [32] Apple Transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CU
Remark: Study how airflow velocity, opening area, and trays affect cooling efficiency. Sensitivity tests show that inaccurate input values (within
10% of correct value) for the inlet-air velocity contribute to an inaccuracy of about 0.5 K in the model predictions, which is within the
measurement error of most temperature-measuring devices used in the postharvest industry
2008 [142] FS spheres Steady D-CFD-S & Expt. CU
Remark: Predict airflow field within complex packed structure where ratio of container to product diameter is less than 10. One of the major
results of this study was the demonstration of using a 2D PIV system to trace the flow field within a packed structure without disturbing the
flow. PIV provides a physical insight into the flow-field behavior within a complex structure. Experimental and predicted velocities are
consistent
2008 [35] PS Transient Porous medium (two-phase) & Expt. CU
Remark: Study how different geometric location of ventilation holes affects cooling uniformity. Model prediction and measured data are
consistent. The higher the vent area, the better is the air uniformity during the process
2008 [100] Spheres Steady D-CFD-S & Expt. APD
Remark: Study of stacking of products, product size, TOA, porosity, airflow rate on APD, and airflow pattern through stacks of boxes with
horticultural products. Uses discrete-element method to generate random stacking of products. The flow resistance is affected by the
confinement ratio, product size, porosity, box-vent-hole ratio, and much less by random filling. The study provides more accurate pressure-drop
correlations to predict large-scale cooling of boxes containing horticultural products
2009 [28–30] Strawberries & FS spheres Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CU
Remark: Study how structure and design of packaging system affects cooling uniformity. Experimental validation of flow and energy models.
Airflow bypass is not necessarily negative because this can imply that colder air reaches the clamshells farther downstream, which can improve
the uniformity cooling between individual clamshells
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 317

Table 1 (continued)

Reference Material TD Method PPs

2009 [143] Strawberries Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CT, CU
Remark: Study how package-design parameters affect the CT and CU. The results indicate that the vent area significant affects the cooling rate,
but not on the uniformity of cooling. A novel packaging design that leads to a higher percentage of airflow through the clamshells will not
necessarily increase the cooling rate. Although this approach decreases the resistance for convective heat transfer within clamshells, its effect on
the variation of air temperature along the system is not as straightforward
2009 [103,144] Strawberries Steady & transient Porous medium & Expt. CU
Remark: Describe space-and-time-dependent mathematical formulation for perforation-mediated MAPs that consider all relevant biological and
transport phenomena (respiration, transpiration, condensation, heat transfer evaporative, convection, and conduction), and convective and
diffusive transport of O2, CO2, H2O, and N2. The mathematical model is based essentially on fundamental laws, which are supplemented by the
minimum possible amount of empirical information
2009 [55] Spheres Steady & transient D-CFD-S CT, CU
Remark: Study how turbulence intensity, mesh sensitivity, opening size and ratios, and air inflow rate affect airflow patterns and temperature
distribution in simulated ventilated container. The results show that the choice of flow modeling (laminar versus turbulent) for the selected
geometry (opening area and 3D geometry) and boundary conditions (air-inflow velocity and inflow turbulence) could be crucial at the very
beginning of the simulation procedure. This study should provide a better method for analyzing the cooling performance of ventilated packages
2010 [67] Not specified – Expt. EC
Remark: Collects information on electricity consumption of commercial forced-air cooling facilities and describes conservation options for
reducing heat input and improving facility management. The average EC for all facilities is 0.4, which is the same as reported 20 years ago by
Thompson and Chen [113]
2011 [12] PS Transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CT, CR, CU
Remark: Study how different package vent configurations affect produce temperature distribution during forced convection cooling of produce.
The methodology developed in this study can be used as a design tool to provide the homogeneous temperature distribution in ventilated
packages during forced convection cooling of produce
2011 [145] Strawberries Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CR, CU, EC
Remark: Study how design of individual clamshells and trays on CR, CU, and EC of forced-air cooling system. Optimization of forced-air cooling
system designs. For the same airflow conditions, the new design significantly improves the uniformity and energy efficiency of the process, while
still replicating of the cooling rate of commercial designs
2012 [17] PS Transient D-CFD-S & Expt. CT, CR, CU
Study how number of vents positions affects CR and CU. The results show that increasing vent area does not necessarily shorten the cooling time,
and it can even increase the cooling time if the vents are not properly distributed on the package walls. Additionally, increasing vent area beyond
a specific level cannot have a positive effect on cooling uniformity and time
2012 [124] Corrugated paperboard panel – FEM & Expt. MS
Remark: The work presented studies one possible reason for the discrepancy between the analytical and experimental results for the buckling
problem of a simply supported uniaxially compressed corrugated paperboard panel. Some in-sight analysis of the gaps and future trends are
given, which would reduce the discrepancy (e.g., considering the difference with a multi-term analytical solution, improving the material
modeling of corrugated paperboard and changing the out-of-plane boundary conditions to more closely resemble the experimental conditions)
2012 [44] Grapes – Expt. APD, CR
Remark: Study how different components (i.e., liner films, the carrying bag, the grapes, and the container) of multi-scale packaging affect airflow
resistance and cooling rate. The results show that liner films contribute by far the greatest resistance to airflow compared with the rest of the
package components of the grape multi-packaging
2013 [11] Oranges Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. HCT, SECT, CR, CU
Remark: Comparison of cooling performance of different package designs based on a single container or stacked on a pallet. The cooling
performance of different package designs was evaluated by the CT, and CU and the magnitude of CHTC in a specific container and between
different containers on the pallet
2013 [6,7] Water-filled plastic spheres Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. HCT, SECT, APD, CU
Remark: Study how vent parameters (vent area, shape, number, position) affect cooling efficiency (airflow characteristics, APD, CU, EC). Develop
and verify model. Vent size and position more strongly influence the cooling efficiency of horticultural produce than does vent shape. This
modelling approach can be used to study any horticultural-produce-packaging system. However, the study used plastic spheres instead of real
produce, so the simulation results from the study may be of questionable accuracy
2013 [40] Grape Transient Porous medium & Expt. CU (temperature and RH)
Remark: Study how different package components (box, liner, and pads), product stacking, and cooling procedures affect airflow, heat transfer,
and mass transfer processes. The results show that non-perforated liners produce the highest RH inside the package that gives the lowest
moisture loss but the highest condensation. The results demonstrate clearly that CFD models may be used to determine the optimum table grape
packaging and cooling procedures
2014 [21] Orange Steady & transient D-CFD-S & Expt. HCT, SECT, APD, CR, CU, EC
Remark: Study how cooling conditions (airflow rate and cooling temperature) affect fruit cooling rate and the system energy consumption. This
study mainly provides basic information for preliminary design decisions or for altering existing cooling protocols or cooling systems
2015 [139] Oranges Steady & transient Porous medium & Expt. SECT, CR, CU
Remark: Identify differences in cooling rate and uniformity between individual boxes at different heights on a pallet and between individual
fruit within a given box. This study proposes strategies for future improvements of the ambient loading protocol, which includes optimizing box
design and stacking on the pallet specifically for vertical airflow and reducing the airflow short circuits between the pallets

(continued on next page)

318 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

Table 1 (continued)

Reference Material TD Method PPs

2015 [5] Apple Transient D-CFD-S & Expt. HCT, CU
Remark: Study how number of vents affects CT and CU. Optimize designs for fresh-fruit packaging. The results indicate that the region with the
highest produce temperature corresponds to the region with lowest cooling-air velocity. Cooling performance is significantly improved by
increasing the number of vent numbers on the windward and leeward sides of the existing container

Note: TD: time dependency, PPs: performance parameters; PVC: polychlorinated vinyl, PS: polymer spheres, PIV: particle image velocimetry, Expt.: experimental methods,
HCT: half-cooling time, SECT: seven-eighths cooling time, CT: cooling time, CR: cooling rate, CU: cooling uniformity, CHTC: convective heat transfer coefficients, APD: air
pressure drop, EC: energy consumption, MS: mechanical strength, FEM: finite element modeling, D-CFD-S: direct CFD simulations, FS: fused silica, TOA: total opening area,
RH: relative humidity of the air.

Fig. 1. Number of peer-reviewed publications concerning CFD applications to cold chain. ‘‘PT” denotes the ratio of postharvest treatment to total; ‘‘ST” denotes the ratio of
supply chain to total.

solutions and to allow the current forced-air precooling systems to play cases); however, Fig. 1 is based on the statistical analysis of
maintain the produce quality for a longer period of time, some incomplete data. As shown in Fig. 1, the number of peer-
challenging issues are discussed in the hopes of indicating some reviewed publications on CFD applications has increased steadily
future directions of research in this area. over the years.

2. Fundamentals of computational fluid dynamics 2.1. Governing equations

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a simulation tool for All CFD simulations are based on the fundamental governing
modelling fluid-flow problems and is based on solving the govern- equations of fluid dynamics (i.e., continuity, momentum, and
ing flow equations. It is also a sophisticated design and analysis energy equations). These equations are the mathematical state-
tool that uses the modern computation power of computers to ments of the conservation laws (conservation of mass, momentum,
simulate fluid flow, heating (drying, cooking, sterilization, chilling), and energy) that govern all fluid flow, heat transfer, and associated
mass transfer (transpiration or dissolution), phase change (freez- phenomena. These conservation laws describe the rate of change of
ing, melting, or boiling), chemical reactions (combustion or rust- a given property of a fluid as a function of external forces
ing), mechanical movement (impellers, pistons, fans or rudders), [13,41,44].
stress or deformation of related structures, and interactions Conservation of mass. The mass flow entering a fluid element
between solids and fluids [41]. With the rapid development of must balance the departing mass flow:
computing power and commercial CFD packages, the accuracy of
such simulations and their reliability are being constantly @q @
þ ðqui Þ ¼ 0 ð1Þ
improved. This technology has been widely used in agricultural @t @xi
cold-chain logistics for the past few years, particularly in the pre-
cooling process of fresh horticultural produce. If used correctly, Conservation of momentum (Newton’s second law). The net
CFD can provide a detailed understanding the complex flow force on a fluid element equals the rate of change of its
through the intricate and chaotic structure within agricultural pro- momentum:
duce packages. However, verifying the accuracy of such simula-

@ @ @P @ @ui
tions requires making traditional measurements, which is ðqui Þ þ ðqui uj Þ ¼  þ l  qu0i u0j þ Si ð2Þ
@t @xj @xi @xj @xj
impossible without disturbing the packaging arrangement [42,43].
Fig. 1 summarizes the peer-reviewed publications concerning Conservation of energy (the first law of thermodynamics). The
CFD applications to postharvest treatment (e.g., drying, cooking, rate of change of energy inside a fluid element equals the sum of
sterilization, chilling, precooling, etc.) and to the supply chain the net heat flux into the element and the rate of work done on
(i.e., refrigerated transportation, cold storage, and refrigerated dis- the element by body and surface forces:
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 319


@ðqTÞ @ @ k level of accuracy, the element size should be smaller in areas
þ ðqui TÞ ¼ gradT þ ST ð3Þ
@t @xi @xi C a where the gradient of the physical quantities being simulated is
large or in areas of particular interest (e.g., areas of strong turbu-
lence, or close to solid boundaries). The key to optimizing compu-
2.2. Discretization schemes tational grids is to find the proper balance between calculation
accuracy and computation cost.
The first step in any CFD simulation is to discretize the compu- Once meshing is completed, the properties of the fluids and of
tational domain; that is, the spatially continuous computational the solids involved in the simulation must also be specified, as well
domain is partitioned into several nonoverlapping subdomains in as the boundary conditions at each interface and the initial condi-
which the computational grid is created. Next, the governing equa- tions for all the variables [48,49]. In some case, the boundary con-
tions are discretized over the mesh; that is, the governing partial ditions will change with time or space. For the model to be as
differential equations are transformed into the corresponding alge- realistic as possible, these boundary conditions should be defined
braical equations at each node, and the physical quantities are in a user-defined function coded in C.
obtained by iteratively solving the algebraical equations at each
node within computational domain. Time must also be discretized 2.4. Solving
to deal with transient problems. Because the dynamics differ
depending on the distributional hypothesis governing the depen- The governing partial differential equations mentioned above
dent variables between nodes and the derivation of the dis- cannot be directly solved in the entire computation domain, so
crete equation, CFD software developers can choose between they must be discretized and solved numerically to estimate the
many different numerical techniques to discretize the computa- value of each variable at specific points in the domain
tional domain. The most important of these techniques include [13,41,48,49]. This step is known as equation discretization and
finite differences, finite elements, and finite volumes. Because of is applied to each individual cell of the mesh. Different discretiza-
the stringent requirements regarding mesh quality (i.e., difficulty tion schemes are described in Section 2.2. The main difference
in processing a complex geometrical model) and because the inte- between them lies in the approximate form of flow variables and
gral conservation law of discrete equations is satisfied only for the corresponding process of discretization. Methods to solve dis-
extremely fine meshes, finite-difference techniques are rarely used cretized equations can be categorized into two types: the couple
in engineering fields. The finite-element method is especially method and the segregate method. The segregate method includes
adapted to solving problems with complex geometrical structure, the semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations (SIMPLE),
for numerical analysis of solid mechanical structures, and for elec- which is used by most commercial CFD packages and determines
tromagnetic problems involving an inhomogeneous medium. the pressure field indirectly by closing the discretized momentum
Although the finite-element method has been used to simulate equations with the continuity equations in a sequential manner
airflow and heat and mass transfer within packaging [12,17,35,45], [50]. However, to enhance convergence rates, some improved
this approach has a lower resolving speed than the methods of methods have been proposed, such as SIMPLEC, SIMPLER, and PISO.
finite differences and finite volumes, so it is not widely used in A comprehensive description of these methods is available else-
commercial CFD packages. The finite-volume methods, being easy where [51–53].
to understand, to program, and with its high computation effi- Within all commercial CFD packages, the solver environment
ciency has become the most popular numerical technique in CFD organizes the mathematical input from the pre-processor into
codes [13,46,47]. Thus, the finite-volume method is the method numerical arrays and solves them by using iterative methods
of choice for simulating all phases of the cold chain (i.e., precooling, [48,49]. This approach is very computationally intensive and
cold storage, refrigerated transport, refrigerated display cabinets, usually requires solving a huge number of equations at each
etc.). step. This process is iterated until the convergence is acceptable.
A CFD simulation can be divided into three phases: pre- Before launching the solver, a choice must be made between
processing, solving, and post-processing. The following three sec- using a steady-state or non-steady-state simulation—a choice that
tions briefly introduce each of these three phases. depends on the phenomena to be investigated. A non-steady-state
simulation is appropriate when the evolution of a phenomenon
2.3. Pre-processing over time is being investigated. The cooling of fresh horticultural
produce requires a non-steady-state simulation to accurately
Pre-processing is crucial for obtaining reliable results from CFD reproduce the dynamics of the heat and mass transfer within the
simulations. It alone consumes almost 50% of the time required for packaging.
the entire CFD simulation. Before determining the appropri-
ate computational domain, the physics of the problem and factors 2.5. Post-processing
that could influence airflow should be understood in detail. For
example, the simulation designer must determine whether, during The results of the simulation are generated when the solving
forced-air precooling, the produce zone should be regarded as a process is completed. To facilitate scrutinizing, analyzing, and eval-
porous medium inside the packaging, or whether the domain can uating the resulting field solution, the results are typically dis-
be reduced by exploiting symmetries or periodicity, thereby reduc- played in the form of temperature and velocity maps, plots of the
ing the computational time and simulation costs. Next, the velocity field, plots of other scalar variables, and animations.
designer must determine the shape of the computational domain Post-processing can also give information on the instantaneous
that is to be subdivided into numerous cells, also known as vol- value of all variables at certain positions in the domain [48]. In
umes and elements. Most commercial CFD packages contain pro- addition, most CFD packages also allow the field data to be
grams to simultaneously define the domain and construct the exported to third-party software, where they can be further pro-
mesh. This stage of the process is very important because the reli- cessed. Above all, the post-processing task is essential for a com-
ability of the solution depends on the size of these elements (i.e., prehensive evaluation of the simulation from the point of view of
the solution is ‘‘grid dependent”) [48]. As the elements decrease accuracy, authenticity, and satisfaction. Fig. 2 shows an example
in size, the accuracy of the solution, the computation time, and of the visualization techniques. The figure shows clearly the air-
the memory requirements all increase. However, to achieve a good flow characteristics inside the package after 300 min of cooling.
320 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

Fig. 2. Airflow characteristics inside packaging after 300 min of cooling:(a) velocity streamlines, (b) turbulent kinetic-energy contour 13 cm above bottom of box, (c)
instantaneous-velocity field 13 cm above bottom of box, (d) distribution of cooling-air velocity 13 cm above bottom of box [5].

3. Applications of computational fluid dynamics to precooling cooling within packaged horticultural produce. An experimental
of fresh produce investigation that used different air-inflow velocities was done to
determine the precooling characteristics of perishable food during
To slow the rate of metabolism and reduce deterioration of hor- forced-air precooling [62]. The results demonstrate that the pro-
ticultural products before they are put in long-term refrigerated duct’s surface heat-transfer coefficient and cooling rate increase
storage or transportation, a critical step in the postharvest cold upon increasing the speed of the cooling fluid over the product.
chain is rapid precooling after harvest to remove field heat. This Delele et al. [6] and Tutar et al. [55] arrived at a similar conclusion;
vital postharvest treatment technique also ensures the quality namely, that a reasonable increase in cooling rate occurs upon
and safety of horticultural products and extends their storage increasing the airflow speed to a certain constant value above
and shelf life across the entire cold chain. A variety of precooling which further increasing the airflow speed is essentially a waste
techniques are available for use in the agricultural industry. Room of energy because it leads only to a relatively modest increase in
cooling, forced-air cooling, hydro-cooling, vacuum cooling, and liq- heat transfer across the product’s surface.
uid icing are common methods of precooling systems, among As shown by Alvarez and Flick [63,64], cooling is very heteroge-
others [54–60]. The choice of precooling method is greatly influ- neous during forced-air precooling due to poor temperature man-
enced by produce type, because different commodities have differ- agement. Commodities located behind blind walls may not be
ent cooling requirements (e.g., refrigeration temperature, sufficiently cooled, whereas others exposed to higher airflow
sensitivity to water) [16,32]. Although no complete cooling method speeds are overcooled, leading to freezing, chilling, or drying dam-
satisfies the cooling requirements of all crops, forced-air precooling ages. In addition, the packaging material itself also increases the
can be adapted to a wider range of fresh produce than any other resistance to airflow and thereby to cooling, because it prevents
cooling method. Forced-air precooling consists of forcing cold air direct contact between the cooling air and the produce [6]. There-
through stacked packages and around each individual unit of pro- fore, the cooling efficiency is also directly affected by the design of
duce. This process uses a powerful fan to generate the necessary the ventilated packages that reused during the precooling process.
driving force to create a pressure differential across the container, A proper design of the package vents may not only provide uniform
which draws air in from the surroundings, through the container airflow through the entire mass of produce and consequently uni-
openings, and around the produce [54]. Its efficiency may be eval- form cooling of the produce, but also decrease the amount of the
uated by the speed of the process (e.g., cooling rate, half-cooling energy required to operate any precooling system by reducing
time, seven-eighths-cooling time) and the uniformity of the pro- the cooling time and the air-pressure drop through the produce
duce temperature [9,19,61]. [65–67]. The package must have sufficient openings to provide uni-
In the forced-convection-cooling process, transient convective form airflow around the produce without sacrificing mechanical
heat transfer occurs between the fluid medium and the units of resistance [20,54,61]. Dehghannya et al. [12,17] demonstrated that
solid food, which is the main reason field heat is removed from increasing the vent area does not necessarily lead to homogeneous
fresh produce. Information about the product’s surface heat- cooling and can even increase cooling heterogeneity if the vents
transfer coefficient is also essential for obtaining rapid and uniform are not properly distributed on the package walls. Thus, to ensure
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 321

uniform airflow during the cooling process, the vents must be the first to experimentally establish a linear relationship between
properly distributed on the package walls. A proper design of pack- pressure drop $p (Pa/m) and volume-averaged velocity caused
age vents, including both vent area [1,65,68] and positions is nec- by viscous drag in porous media:
essary to enhance the efficiency of forced-air precooling systems l
and still maintain adequate mechanical support for the produce $p ¼  u; ð4Þ
K
[19]. Unfortunately, the current design of packaging is largely qjujdeff
based on the criterion of mechanical strength and ease of manufac- Rep ¼ ; ð5Þ
l
turing, with minimal consideration for how the vent pattern affects
cooling efficiency. As a result, much packaging remains inefficient where l (kg m1 s1) is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid, and K
in promoting rapid and uniform cooling of the package produce (m2) is the Darcy permeability of the porous matrix and depends
[19,69]. Thus, meeting the demand from the market for fresh pro- on many factors including pore geometry, produce diameter, pore
duce for standardization and globalization, a remaining challenge size, and pore distribution. The vector u (m/s) is known as the
is to design a vented package to maximize the cooling and ventila- superficial velocity. The physical air velocity (or the intrinsic air
tion uniformity and minimize deterioration of the packed produce velocity), which is the true velocity through the pores of the med-
without affecting the mechanical integrity of the package. ium, is calculated by v = u/e, where e is the porosity. Rep is the par-
In recent decades, an increasing number of in-depth experimen- ticle Reynolds number, and q (kg/m3) is the fluid density. deff (m) is
tal or numerical studies and analyses have been done on how pack- the effective diameter of the product and, for nearly spherical items,
age design affects the cooling efficiency. In addition, experimental is expressed as deff = 6V/A, where V and A are the volume (m3) and
studies have proven to be more expensive and time consuming, the surface area (m2) of the product, respectively. However, Gaskell
and thus difficult to undertake. With the rapid development of [71] gave another way to calculate the effective product diameter:
CFD modeling, numerical models have become very popular in var- deff = (6V/p)1/3. For produce of nonuniform size, a mean diameter
ious fields because they reduce the need for complex field experi- can be used, which is derived from the weighted distribution of pro-
ments. In particular, the attractiveness of CFD modelling is also duce diameters [72].
because it provides airflow patterns and temperatures with high As highlighted by Miguel [73], the linear relationship between
spatiotemporal resolution [5,11,42,48]. Generally, two meth- pressure drop and velocity is violated when Rep > 1, which corre-
ods exist for modeling forced-air precooling of fresh produce: the sponds to most practical situations for food-cooling applications,
porous-medium method and direct CFD simulation. The following such as precooling and cold storage. For higher velocities, a quad-
two sections provide a detailed introduction to each of these two ratic term (i.e., the resistance due to inertial effects) should be
methods. added to Eq. (4), forming what is commonly known as the
Darcy–Forchheimer equation:
3.1. Porous-medium approach

l C
rp ¼  u  q pffiffiffi
F
ffi juju; ð6Þ
K K
A porous medium (or a porous material) is a solid matrix con-
taining pores (voids) that typically are filled with a fluid (liq- where CF is the dimensionless Forchheimer coefficient that mainly
uid or gas).Transport phenomena (the transport of fluid, heat, and depends on the geometry of the pore space. The experimental study
mass) in porous media play an important role in many areas of of Lage et al. [74] demonstrated that the Forchheimer coefficient CF
applied science and engineering (e.g., food industry, energy, metal- is linear in fluid velocity when the particle Rep > 300; thus, in the
lurgy, chemical industry, materials science, space science, environ- turbulent regime the pressure drop correlates with a polynomial
mental science, life sciences, medicine, etc.), making it a point from that is cubic in fluid velocity. However, the validity of the Darcy–
which an intersecting science frontier may emerge. In the food Forchheimer equation is still questioned for fully developed turbu-
industry, an enormous range of processes with different scales lent flow (Rep > 300) [74–76]. The main difficulty in resolving this
can involve the transport of fluid, heat, and mass through porous question is the near inaccessibility of porous media for detailed flow
media (e.g., mixing, drying, cooking, sterilization, and cold storage measurements [77].
as well as cooling of stacked bulk produce such as apples and For near-spherical produce, the coefficient in Eq. (6) can be
tomatoes with or without packaging) [42,70]. computed by using the Ergun relations [78]:
For forced-convection cooling of fresh produce, the airflow and
produce-cooling characteristics inside vented packaging must be 1 K 1 ð1  eÞ2
¼ ; ð7Þ
deff e3
K 2
understood for proper cooling and optimum design of fresh-fruit
packaging. However, because of limitations in computational K2
resources and complex packaging structures, the porous-medium CF ¼ : ð8Þ
1 e
K 1=2 3=2
approach to understanding airflow, heat, and mass transfer has
until recently been the only means of modeling transport phenom- For randomly stacked spheres, the constants K1 and K2 vary
ena within ventilated packages, because it allows the mathemati- from source to source; the original parameters were 150 and
cal model to be simplified and therefore reduces computing time 1.75 [35], respectively, whereas others suggested using 180 and
and simulation costs. In this case, the space-average approach is 1.80 [67,73]. However, for packed beds with objects having other
required and the fluid flow is characterized by the superficial shapes or rough surfaces, the parameters K1 and K2 can take on
velocity (i.e., velocity based on volumetric flow rate). Below, based other values [44]. Shahbazi [79] experimented with the resistance
on the porous-medium method, a detailed discussion of the funda- of airflow through a bulk of chickpea seeds. The results showed
mental theory of airflow in porous media is presented together that Ergun’s model fit well to the experiment data for airflow rates
with the important aspects related to heat and mass transfer. in the range of 0.02–0.50 m3 s1 m2. Moreover, the pressure drop
increases with increasing airflow rate and bed depth, but the resis-
3.2. Airflow in porous media tance increases more rapidly with airflow rate compared with bed
depth. The accuracy (expressed as the summed relative deviation
For small airflow in porous media (i.e., the particle Reynolds of the pressure drop) of the Ergun equation was demonstrated by
number Rep < 1), the airflow rate is proportional to the pressure van der Sman [77] to be at most 6.6% for both potatoes and
drop, which constitutes the well-known Darcy law. Darcy was oranges, although a refitted apparent-porosity value was used for
322 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

the latter. In the study of Alvarez et al. [80] the values of K and CF whereas the trend is the opposite for low Reynolds numbers.
were determined experimentally for stacked spheres. The results Moreover, they proposed the correlation of Reichelt [88] for a con-
reveal that sphere stacking significantly affects the difference fined bed, where the effect of the ratio of package-to-produce con-
between experiment results and results calculated by using finement is considered. The accuracy of this new correction is
Ergun’s law. Therefore, the produce size, airflow rate, porosity, always slightly better than that of the Ergun equations (7) and
and stacking pattern considerably affect the values of K1 and K2. (8), particularly for a ratio of package-to-product diameter that is
However, in the case of a porous medium of irregular structure, less than ten, which is common for retail packaging of horticultural
these coefficients must be determined experimentally. products (e.g., apples, strawberries, tomatoes, etc.). The following
As highlighted by Verboven et al. [81] and Tasnim et al. [82], the coefficients are used in Eq. (9):
Darcy–Forchheimer equation is strictly valid only for unbounded
porous media without walls. However, in forced-convection cool- 1 K 1 A2w ð1  eÞ2
¼ ; ð10Þ
deff e3
K 2
ing of fresh produce, packaging confines the foods within a finite
volume. For flow through a confined packed bed, such as for vented
packaging, current investigations focus on how the confining walls 1
and the ratio of package-to-produce diameter affect the pressure CF ¼ ; ð11Þ
Bw K 11=2 e3=2
drop within packed beds. Properly representing this confinement
effect requires adding an additional viscous term (i.e., the Brink-
2
man term) to Eq. (6) [72,81]: Aw ¼ 1 þ ; ð12Þ
3ðDh =deff Þð1  eÞ


l C
F
ffi juju þ leff r2 u;
$p ¼  u  q pffiffiffi ð9Þ k1
K K Bw ¼ þ k2 ; ð13Þ
Dh =deff
where leff is the effective dynamic viscosity in the boundary layer
where Aw is an analytical expression to account for how the confin-
at the solid-porous interface in the medium, which depends mainly
ing wall affects the hydraulic radius of the bed voids of the porous
on porosity and tortuosity of the porous medium. In most cases, the
medium, Bw expresses the porosity effect of the walls at high Rey-
tortuosity in neglected and leff = l/e is used [42,72,81]. As reported
nolds number, and Dh (m) is the hydraulic diameter of the package.
by Vafai and Tien [83], leff  l can be assumed for porous media
The values of the coefficients K1, k1, and k2 are listed in Table 2.
with large porosity.
The Darcy–Forchheimer–Brinkman (DFB) equation accounts for
the boundary-layer development, macroscopic shear stress, micro- 3.3. Heat and mass transfer in porous media
scopic shear stress, and inertial force. A porous medium and clear
fluid interface is best dealt with by the DFB equation and by 3.3.1. Single-phase models
assuming continuity of velocities and stresses at the interface To analyze the macroscopic heat flow through porous media,
[84,85]. However, the Brinkman term does not significantly influ- the porous medium is often considered to be saturated with a
ence the pressure drop over the packed bed. The effect of the Brink- single-phase Newtonian fluid and is further assumed to be in local
man term is to give rise to a small boundary layer where the thermal equilibrium with the working fluid [82]. The local volume-
velocity reduces to zero exactly at the solid wall [77,81]. If this averaged properties are used under the local thermal equilibrium,
term is omitted from Eq. (9), the numerical solution of the velocity i.e., hTis = hTif = hTi, where hTi is the intrinsic volume-averaged tem-
profile near the wall will contain a nonphysical numerical artifact perature, T (K) is the temperature, and s and f are the solid and fluid
[83,84]. Therefore, this term is important near the walls in the por- phase, respectively. The intrinsic volume-averaged temperature is
ous media. Any reduction in velocity in the boundary layer due to given by
the Brinkman term is counter balanced by an increased velocity Z Z
1 1
resulting from higher porosity near wall, where produce items can- hTis ¼ hTif ¼ hTi ¼ T f dV ¼ T f dV
Vf Vf Vf Vf
not be packed in the same way as in the interior of the porous med- Z
ium. According to Nield [86], the walls cause two counteracting 1
¼ T f dV; ð14Þ
effects: The first effect is an extra resistance due to wall friction. Vf Vf
The second effect is that, near the wall, produce is positioned so
as to create a region of increased porosity, extending approxi- V ¼ V f þ V s; ð15Þ
mately half a particle diameter into the packed bed [72]. Some
researchers claim that the counteracting effect depends on the where V is the elementary volume, and Vs and Vf are the volume of
Reynolds number [87–89], with a low Reynolds number leading the solid and fluid phases, respectively.
to an increase in the pressure drop as a result of wall friction and Based on the assumption of local thermal equilibrium, the
to a decrease of the turbulent regime due to the increased void phase-averaged energy-conservation equation for porous media is
fraction near the wall, which reduces resistance [42,72,81]. Fur- @hTi
thermore, Eisfeld and Schnitzlein [89] indicate that, for high ½eqf C f þ ð1  eÞqs C s  þ qf C f urhTi
@t
Reynolds-number flow through a confined packed bed, the drop
¼ ke r2 hTi þ qf C f rðeDd rhTiÞ þ ½eqf þ ð1  eÞqs ; ð16Þ
increases with increasing ratio of package-to-produce diameter,
where qf is the fluid density (kg/m3), Cf is the fluid specific-heat
Table 2
capacity(J kg1 K1), qp is the solid density (kg/m3), cp is the solid
Coefficients K1, k1, and k2 [89]. specific-heat capacity (J kg1 K1), ke = ekf + (1  e)kp is the effective
thermal conductivity (W m1 K1), kf is the thermal conductivity of
Particle shape Coefficients
the fluid(W m1 K1), kp is the thermal conductivity of the solid
K1 k2 k3 (W m1 K1), Dd is the effective diffusion tensor and depends on
Spheres 154 1.15 0.87 fluid velocity and takes into account the axial and radial fluid dis-
Cylinders 190 2.00 0.77 persion due to solid obstacles [42,90], and q is the heat-source term
All particles 155 1.42 0.83
(W/m3).
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 323

3.3.2. Two-phase models

If the porous medium has a nonzero thermal conductivity, sig-
nificant heat is generated in all phases (fluid or solid). If the fluid
velocity is high, the local thermal equilibrium assumption is not
valid, so separate energy equations must be solved for the porous
solid matrix and the fluid parts [82]. In two-phase models, each
phase is assumed to be continuous and is represented by total
effective thermal conductivity. In this case, the thermal coupling
between phases is calculated by using the parameter hsf, which is
the interfacial convective-heat-transfer coefficient [42,81,91]. The
energy equation for each phase can then be written as
" #
@hTif
eqf C f þ u  $hTif ¼ ekf r2 hTif þ Afs hfs ðhTis  hTif Þ
@t
þ eqf ; ð17Þ Fig. 4. A three-dimensional physical model of ventilated packaging during forced-
convection cooling of produce.

@hTis
ð1  eÞqs C s ¼ ð1  eÞks r2 hTis þ Afs hfs ðhTis  hTif Þ þ ð1  eÞqs ;
@t of individual packages of horticultural produce. Furthermore, for
ð18Þ transient forced-air precooling, the two-temperature model is
inadequate because of the significant difference between center
where Afs is the specific interfacial surface area (m2), and hfs is
and surface temperatures of the produce [81]. With the rapid
the heat-transfer coefficient between fluid and solid surfaces
development of computer hardware and software in recent years,
(W m2 K1). Wakao and Kaguei [92] critically examined the
accurately simulating the details of the airflow and heat- and
experiment results that determined the interfacial convective
mass-transfer processes inside a complex packaged structure is
heat-transfer coefficients. They found the following correlation for
more often done by direct CFD simulation rather than by using
spherical particles:
the porous-medium approach.
hfs deff
Nu ¼ ¼ 2 þ 1:1Re0:6 Pr 1=3 : ð19Þ
kf
3.4. Direct computational fluid dynamics simulations
The two-phase model has been used to describe the forced-air
precooling process, including heat generation (e.g., heat of respira- In direct CFD simulations, the geometrical complexities are not
tion, transpiration, and condensation), mass transfer (dehydra- simplified by the effective medium, in contrast with the porous-
tion), and the effects of packaging walls and trays [93–97]. Zou medium approach [90,99]. Instead, a direct model based on the
et al. [91,98] experimentally verified this model for the case of explicit geometry of produce stacked in boxes was developed
cooling apples. The results of the model were consistent with and used to study the local and average airflow through stacks of
experiment results. In most positions, the predicted central tem- horticultural products (e.g., the packaging wall, trays, produce,
peratures of the produce fit well with the experiment measure- etc.). Because this approach deals with local quantities, it is not
ments, with the temperature differences after 4 h of cooling constrained to any ratio of package-to-produce diameter and does
being less than 2 K. Despite extensive efforts, the accuracy of using not require any additional parameters [43]. The accuracy of the
the porous-medium approach to model the airflow and heat- model is seriously limited by the accuracy of the model parame-
transfer process within packaging has always been questioned, ters, especially for the porous-medium approach. Many studies
particularly for layered packaging [98]. The main drawback of this developed detailed simulations of the local-airflow field and
approach is that it neglects internal product gradients. Another sig- heat-transfer process within the packaging of various fresh pro-
nificant limitation of this approach is the nonvalidity of the duce by using the explicit geometry of produce stacked in boxes
continuous-medium assumption when the ratio of package-to- [40,100]. However, most studies did not consider heat transfer by
produce diameter is less than ten, which often occurs in the case contact between the produce (resulting in so-called ‘‘near-miss”

Fig. 3. ‘‘Near-miss” model.

324 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

models; see Fig. 3) [99,101]. Logtenberg et al. [102] used direct CFD the x, y, and z directions, respectively, p is the fluid pressure (N/m2),
simulations to predict the fluid flow and heat transfer in a packed la is the dynamic viscosity (Pa s), cp,a is the air specific-heat capac-
bed of ten solid spheres, both under laminar and turbulent flow, ity (J kg1 K1), and Su, Sv, and Sw represent source terms in the x, y,
but considering sphere contact and heat generation from the and z directions, respectively. This work only considers the effect of
spheres. This can contribute not only to obtaining the real-flow sit- gravity in the free-airflow zone, so Su = Sw = 0, Sv = qag, where g is
uation, but also to significantly improving the accuracy of the the acceleration due to gravity (m/s2), u0i u0j is the specific Reynolds
results of the simulation. stress term, and i and j are Cartesian coordinates.
Geometric modeling and grid generation become complicated In the produce zone, the heat of respiration (Qr, W) and transpi-
because of the explicit geometry of the produce included in direct ration (Qe, W), the convective heat transfer from the commodity
CFD simulations, which increases the computational requirements surface (Qconv, W), and the release of heat due to condensation
and numerical difficulties. However, the method can lead to a more on the commodity surface are the main heat sources internal to
fundamental understanding of how local behavior of the fluid flow each apple. Therefore, heat flow inside the produce zone is
affects the heat- and mass-transfer processes within the packaging [17,30,103]
of various fresh produce during cooling. This method is more signif-
@T p
icant than the porous-medium approach for improving the design qp cp;p ¼ kp r2 T p þ Se ; ð23Þ
of packaging systems, so that, during the forced-convection cooling @t
of produce, these systems now provide rapid and uniform cooling of Q  Q e þ Q con  Q conv
Se ¼ r ; ð24Þ
produce with minimal energy consumption. Vp
where qp is the produce density (kg/m3), cp,p is the produce
3.4.1. Airflow, heat- and mass-transfer models specific-heat capacity (J kg1 K1), Tp is the produce temperature
We require a three-dimensional mathematical model of airflow (K), kp is the thermal conductivity of the produce (W m1 K1), and
and heat transfer for analyzing simultaneously the aerodynamic Se is the heat-source term (W/m3). The heat of respiration (W) is
and thermal forced-convection cooling of vented packaging (see Qr = qpqrVp, and qr = 0.003f (1.8Tp + 32)g is the respiratory-heat gen-
Fig. 4). The following equations are applied for different zones eration per unit mass of commodity (W/kg), where the respiration
(e.g., air, produce, packaging walls, or tray zone). coefficients (f and g) for different crops are given by Becker et al.
The flow in the free-airflow zone is obtained by solving the [104]. Vp is the volume of the produce (m3), Qe = LpmtAp is the
Reynolds-average Navier–Stokes equations. evaporative heat-transfer rate due to transpiration (W),
Conservation of mass gives Lp = C1T2p + C2Tp + C3 is the latent heat of evaporation (J/kg), with
@ qa C1 = 0.0091  103, C2 = 7.5129  103, and C3 = 3875.1  103. The
þ divðqa UÞ ¼ 0: ð20Þ quantity Ap is the surface area of the produce (m2), and mt is the rate
@t
of moisture loss from the product (kg m2 s1). When pw > ph and
Conservation of momentum gives
ps > ph, mt = kt(ps  ph), otherwise mt = 0. kt is the transpiration
@ðqa uÞ @p coefficient (kg m2 s1 Pa1) [see Eq. (27)] [35,104]. The quantity
þ divðqa uUÞ ¼ divðla graduÞ 
@t @x pw is the saturation partial water vapor pressure (Pa), ps is the partial
" #
@ðqa u02 Þ @ðqa u0 v 0 Þ @ðqa u0 w0 Þ pressure of water vapor at the evaporating surface (Pa), and ph is the
þ    partial pressure of water in air (Pa) [103,104]:
@x @y @z
ph ¼ RH  pw ; ps ¼ VPL  pw ; ð25Þ
þ Su;
ð21aÞ pw ¼ 0:041081186T 3a  32:431887T 2a þ 8567:5269T a
 757070:1; ð26Þ
@ðqa v Þ @p 1
þ divðqa vUÞ ¼ divðla gradv Þ  kt ¼ : ð27Þ
@t @y 1=ka þ 1=ks
" #
@ðqa u v 0 Þ @ðqa v 02 Þ @ðqa v 0 w0 Þ
0
In these equations, Ta is the pre-cooling air temperature, RH is the
þ   
@x @y @z relative humidity of the air, and VPL is the vapor-pressure-
lowering effect of the produce. The water VPL effect for various
þ Sv ;
fruits and vegetables are provided by Becker et al. [104]. The quan-
ð21bÞ tity ka is the air-film mass-transfer coefficient (kg m2 s1 Pa1),
and ks is the skin mass-transfer coefficient (kg m2 s1 Pa1), which
@ðqa wÞ @p
þ divðqa wUÞ ¼ divðla gradwÞ  describes the resistance to moisture migration through the produce
@t @z skin and is related to the structure and properties of the produce
" #
@ðqa u0 w0 Þ @ðqa v 0 w0 Þ @ðqa w0 2 Þ skin. Becker et al. [104] tabulated skin mass-transfer coefficients
þ    for different commodities. The value of ka can be estimated by using
@x @y @z
the Sherwood–Reynolds–Schmidt correlations [35,45,103,104],
þ Sw :
ka dRT a
ð21cÞ Sh ¼ ¼ 2:0 þ 0:552Re0:53 Sc0:33 ; ð28Þ
DMH2 O
Conservation of energy gives 9:1  109 T 2:5

 D¼ a
; ð29Þ
@ðqa TÞ k T a þ 245:18
þ divðqa UTÞ ¼ div gradT
@t cp;a where Sh, Re, and Sc are the Sherwood number, Reynolds
" #
@ðqa u T Þ @ðqa v T 0 Þ @ðqa w0 T 0 Þ
0 0 0 number, and Schmidt number, respectively. R = 8.314 J mol1 K1
þ    þ S; ð22Þ is the universal gas constant, D is the diffusion coefficient of water
@x @y @z
vapor in air (m2/s), MH2 O is the molecular mass of water vapor,
where qa is the air density (kg/m3), t is time (s), U is the velocity Re = (qaud)/la, and Sc = la/(qaD). Qcon = LpmconAp is the release of
vector (m/s), u, v, and w are the air-velocity components (m/s) in heat due to condensation on the commodity surface, and mcon is
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 325

Fig. 5. Various packaging and stacking of different products [5,8,11,63,64,100,139,140].

the condensation coefficient (kg m2 s1). When ph > pw, mcon = 4. Parameters used to analyze package performance
ka(ph  ps), otherwise mcon = 0. The parameter Qconv is the
convective heat transfer from the commodity surface: Optimization of fresh-fruit packaging design is required to
reduce energy loss by minimizing the precooling time and to
Q conv ¼ hp ðT p  T a ÞAp ; ð30Þ
enhance fruit quality by providing more uniform cooling without
hp d inducing chilling injuries. From the studies done to date, no unique
Nu ¼ ¼ 2 þ 1:1Re0:6 Pr 1=3 ; ð31Þ
ka container concept appears suitable for all crops. The performance
of packaging depends on the specific case in question and is
where hp is the heat-transfer coefficient at the surface of the pro-
determined by a multitude of variables and conditions [10]. A
duce (W m2 K1), and Pr is the Prandtl number. For the solid zone,
non-exhaustive summary of the different packaging and stacking
the heat flow inside the corrugated boxes and tray zone was mod-
of different products is given in Fig. 5. To obtain the optimal design
eled by using Eq. (23) with zero heat source (Se = 0). The walls of the
of packaging structure for a specific product, some packaging
corrugated boxes are very thin for modified atmosphere packaging
performance parameters are widely used in the literature (i.e.,
and the temporal variations in temperature through the wall are
cooling time, cooling rate, cooling uniformity, energy consumption,
also quite small. Therefore, the total heat flux qw into the packaging
and mechanical strength). These parameters not only allow
is assumed to be the sum of a steady-state heat-conduction flux and
quantitatively comparison between the performance of existing
a heat flux due to condensation on the packaging wall [103]. The
packaging designs, but also, in a more integrated way, between
total heat flux through the packaging wall can be expressed as
the performances of new designs.
Ta  T
qw ¼ þ qwcon ; ð32Þ
1=hi þ lw =kw þ 1=ho 4.1. Cooling time

where T is the gas-mixture temperature inside the package (K), Packaging materials increase cooling airflow resistance and
qwcon = Lwmwcon is heat flux due to condensation (W/m2), and lw is block direct contact between cooling air and produce [6,7]. The
the package-wall thickness (m).The latent heat of vaporization negative effects significantly affect produce cooling time and rates.
Lw = (3151.37 + 1.805T  4.186T)103 J/kg is based on the gas- Therefore, quantifying the cooling time and rate is particularly
mixture temperature [105]. The parameter mwcon is the condensa- relevant for evaluating the effectiveness of package design during
tion coefficient for the package wall (kg m2 s1). When ph > pw, precooling of fresh produce, because this determines how fast
mwcon = ka(ph  pw), otherwise mwcon = 0. kw is the thermal conduc- the field heat can be removed [1,10]. In addition, these
tivity of the packaging wall (W m1 K1). The parameters hi and ho quantities are also directly related to product quality, shelf life,
are the inner and outer heat-transfer coefficients of the packaging precooling throughput, operational costs, and energy losses in
wall, respectively (W m2 K1). To simplify the calculations, we the system.
assume that the inner heat-transfer coefficient is the same as the The cooling time depends primarily on many factors, including
heat-transfer coefficient at the surface of the apple; thus, hi is calcu- heat-transfer rate, the difference in temperature between the pro-
lated based on Eq. (31). For cuboid packages, ho can be determined duce and the cooling medium, the thermal properties of the pro-
from the following expression: duce, the size and shape of the produce, the nature of the cooling
kw 1=2 1=3 medium, the type of packaging, and the stacking arrangement
ho ¼ 0:332 Re Pr ; ð33Þ [1,106,107]. In general, product cooling is evaluated by the temper-
db
ature ratio (Y), which is the ratio of the unaccomplished tempera-
where db is the width of the package, and Re is the Reynolds number ture change at anytime to the total temperature change possible
and is based on the width of the package and the air-inflow velocity for a particular cooling condition. It can be determined from the
surrounding the package. temperature profiles as follows:
326 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

Y ¼ ðT P  T a Þ=ðT pin  T a Þ; ð34Þ the cooling period, as is evident from the idealized cooling curve
1X n [Eq. (36)]. However, Defraeye et al. [21] demonstrated that slight
T vwa ¼ V iTi; ð35Þ variations in HCT and SECT with (Tpin  Ta) do appear.
V t i¼1
Castro et al. [65] investigated packages with thirteen different
where Y is the dimensionless temperature, Ta (K) is the precooling- opening configurations and four airflow rates during a horticul-
air temperature, and Tpin (K) is the initial product temperature. Ti tural produce forced-air cooling process. The airflow rate (AFR,
(K) is the produce temperature at cell position i = 1 to i = n, Vi L s1 kg1), total opening area (TOA, %), and produce positioning
(m3) is the volume of mesh cell i, and Vt (m3) is the total volume all significantly affect the HCT. Although straight stacking of pro-
of the fruit zone. Tp (K) is the product temperature. Three different duce results in the same porosity as randomly stacked produce,
temperatures Tp can be used to define Y: (1) the core temperature of straight stacking generates a better defined airflow path and, con-
the product (Tp,c), which is often measured in field or laboratory sequently, a higher cooling rate for the same airflow rate and total
experiments since it is easily done there. However, this is true opening area. The research results show that the HCT does not sig-
because most of the product mass is in the outer portion, and thus nificantly decrease when the total opening area is more than 8%.
large errors may occur by using the center temperature [1]. (2) The The opening area only affects the HCT for the lower AFRs; the
volume-weighted average temperature of an entire product is Tvwa HCT is almost the same for different opening areas when AFRs
[see Eq. (35)] and can be obtained from CFD numerical modelling. exceed 4 L s1 kg1. In addition, a nonlinear model to infer the
(3) The surface temperature at the produce-air interface (Tp,s), HCT is defined as a function of AFR and TOA:
which is rarely used in scientific research. Moreover, Smith and
HCT ¼ 26:1544AFR  58:5849 lnðAFRÞ þ 2:6618 lnðTOAÞ; R2 ¼ 0:892: ð40Þ
Bennett [108] recommend that the product mass-average tempera-
ture should be used for Eq. (34). The mass-average temperature is
the single value obtained from the transient-temperature distribu- 4.2. Cooling rate
tion, which becomes the uniform produce temperature when the
produce is maintained under adiabatic conditions. For Newtonian When warm produce is cooled, the rate of cooling is not con-
heat transfer (a negligible temperature gradient within the product stant but diminishes exponentially as the temperature difference
during cooling, Tp,c  Tvwa  Tp,s), the dimensionless temperature Y reduces, with rapid cooling initially followed by a slower and
is expressed as an exponentially decaying function over time t slower rate [1]. Because of this, the cooling coefficient C (h1) is
[109]: usually adapted to quantify the cooling process. This coefficient
Y p;s ðtÞ ¼ Y vwa ðtÞ ¼ Y p;c ðtÞ ¼ eCt ; ð36Þ (>0) equals the magnitude of the (negative) slope of the ln(Y) vs t
curve. C is constant at any time for an idealized cooling curve [1].
where C is the cooling coefficient, which gives the change in product However, the coefficient cannot give detailed variations in cooling
temperature per unit time for each degree temperature difference rate with time for different packing-structure designs during cool-
between the product and the cooling medium [1,10,58]. As a result ing. Therefore, the cooling rate is sometimes quantified by the
of rapid heat transfer, a temperature gradient (Tp,c > Tvwa > Tp,s) momentary (instantaneous) cooling rate (Rtx, K/h) at time tx
develops within the cooling product, with faster cooling causing lar- [109], where Rtx is defined as
ger gradients. Consequently, conditions for Newton’s law are rarely
lnð2JÞ
satisfied, and the temperature change in the interior of the produce Rt;x ¼ CðT p;x  T a Þ ¼ ðT p;x  T a Þ ð41Þ
lags considerably behind the change in surface temperature. In such HCT
cases, the limiting factor is the rate of heat conduction to the surface with Tp,x being the product temperature at tx.
of the produce, and the dimensionless cooling curve Y(t) can be In addition, the cooling rate of the fruit is also quantified
expressed as [1,10,110] by means of convective heat-transfer coefficients [CHTCs =
Ct qc,s/(Tp,s  Tref) W m2 K1] at the surface of the produce [11,21], which
YðtÞ ¼ je ; ð37Þ relate the convective heat flux normal to the surface(qc,s, W/m2)
where j is the lag factor (i.e., core temperature divided by surface with that resulting from CFD simulations. The reference tempera-
temperature), which depends on the size, shape, and thermal prop- ture Tref is often taken as the cooling-air temperature because it
erties of the product as well as on the Biot number [111]. The lag is easily measured in experiments. Kondjyan [112] reported that
factor varies from 1 to 2 when based on Tp,c [1,111]. the energy exchanged by convection is directly related to the
The cooling time is evaluated based on the dimensionless cool- CHTCs, so this is a more intuitive way to evaluate with high
ing curve Y(t) [Eq. (37)] by determining the half-cooling time (HCT, spatiotemporal resolution the cooling rate of different packaging
s) or the seven-eighths cooling time (SECT, s). These are the times designs.
required to reduce by half the temperature difference between the
produce and the cooling air (Y = 1/2) or seven eighths (Y = 1/8). 4.3. Cooling uniformity
They can also be calculated by using
The heterogeneity index for temperature or velocity is often
HCT ¼ ½lnð2JÞ=C; ð38Þ used to quantify the cooling uniformity. This parameter demon-
SECT ¼ ½lnð8JÞ=C: ð39Þ strates the deviation of the instantaneous value (temperature or
velocity) at different positions from the average value inside the
In general, J and C were determined by regression analyses
ventilated packaging. The heterogeneity indices for temperature
based on Eq. (34). Therefore, the magnitudes of HCT, SECT, J, and
or velocity are respectively defined as [12,17,35]
C critically depend on the choice of Tp to define Y [Eq. (34)]. The
SECT is particularly interesting in commercial-cooling operations qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
because the fruit temperature is then acceptably close to the ðT  TÞ
HIT ¼  100; ð42Þ
required storage temperature. At this point, the fruit can be trans- T
ferred to storage facilities where the remaining heat load can be
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
removed with less energy cost [1,11]. In principle, the HCT and 2
ðV  VÞ
SECT are independent of the initial product temperature and the HIV ¼  100; ð43Þ
temperature difference Tpin  Ta, and remain constant throughout V
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 327

where T and V is the instantaneous value of temperature and veloc- 4.5. Mechanical strengths
ity obtained at a specific position, respectively. T and V are the aver-
age temperature and velocity, respectively, obtained at different Ventilated packaging not only maintains an airflow channel
positions. For the heterogeneity index of temperature, the denomi- between the surroundings and the inside of the packages, but it
nator (T) is close to zero when the product temperatures approach also needs to be sufficiently strong to prevent the produce from
0 °C during cooling. Therefore, to avoid this problem, the tempera- mechanical damage due to one or more types of loading; compres-
ture should be expressed in Kelvin [10]. sion, impact, or vibration during handling, cooling, transport, stor-
In addition, the inverse of the standard deviation of the HCT and age, and marketing [10,118,119]. However, no unified standards or
SECT between individual products in a box, pallet, or container can regulations currently exist for packaging designs for various fresh
also be used to reflect the uniformity of the cooling process. Alter- produce, and the packaging was designed and fabricated mainly
natively, Defraeye et al. [11,21] reported that the CHTCs at the sur- based on the experience of the workers. To improve the mechani-
face of the produce can used to analyze the heterogeneity of cal strength of packaging, manufacturers often use higher-grade
convective-heat loss from produce within a specific container raw materials but give little thought to how the ventilation holes
and between individual containers by using steady-state CFD sim- (e.g., the location, size, and shape) affect mechanical strength,
ulations. This method is even available for evaluating the cooling which will undoubtedly increase manufacturing costs. Especially
heterogeneity of an individual produce, which because the CHTCs for corrugated boxes, the box strength also depends on distribution
at the surface of the produce can be determined based on each hazards such as high relative humidity, excessive stacking load,
computational cell. long-term storage, or offset stacking [120]. Recent research has
shown that, when the relative humidity of the storage air increases
gradually from 30% to 90%, the edge compressive strength
4.4. Energy consumption decreases by 19%. The strength of the corrugated box reduces by
up to 52% when the moisture content of the corrugated package
The efficiency of the forced-air cooling process is mainly indi- increases from 7.7% to 16.4% [121]. A negative exponential rela-
cated by the cooling rate and the cooling uniformity in produce tionship between the compression strength (CS) of corrugated
temperature reduction in contrast to the energy input required board boxes and their moisture content is [122]
by precooling and refrigeration systems [66,113]. However, reduc-
ing energy consumption will further improve the cooling efficiency CS ¼ CS0 10mx ; ð45Þ
and overall economics of cold-chain. The energy required for
forced-air cooling of horticultural produce is directly proportional where CS0 is the compressive strength of the box at zero moisture,
to the total heat load. The composition of the total heat load comes m is the average slope of the logarithm of compressive strength ver-
from the product, surroundings, air infiltration, containers and sus moisture, and x is the dry-based moisture content (ratio
other heat-producing devices [67,114], among them the field heat between the weight of water in the board and the oven dry weight
and respiration heat of fresh produce account for the majority of of the board). Therefore, the influence of environmental factors on
the total heat load [66]. the box performance must be considered in designing the corru-
The energy required to operate any precooling system is gated box for precooling, transportation, or long-term storage
affected by the airflow rate through the fans and the air-pressure [119,123].
drop through the produce [115,116] as well as the opening area The box compression test (BCT) and the edge crush test (ECT)
and position of the packaging [9,54,65,66,115,116]. As shown by are usually used to evaluate the compression strength of the boxes
Defraeye et al. [21], the relation between the total pressure in the laboratory. In recent years, the use of finite element model-
drop over the packaging (DP, Pa) and the airflow rate through it ing (FEM) and experiments (i.e., BCT and ECT) have emerged for
(Ga, m3/s) is expressed as analyzing the box material [124–126] or the impact of the geomet-
ric location, sizes, and shapes of the ventilation holes on box-
DP ¼ n1 G2a þ n2 Ga ; ð44Þ compression strength [69,127], by which the accuracy of the FEM
could also be evaluated. The aim of such studies is to provide a
where n1 and n2 are pressure-loss coefficients. The first term of this more detailed understanding how various designs of ventilation
second-order polynomial represents the pressure drop due to iner- holes affect box strength. Han and Park [69] used FEM to analyze
tial effects (Forchheimer term), which dominates the pressure drop the compression performance of boxes with ventilation holes of
at high speeds, and the second term represents the pressure drop various shapes and sizes. The study tested 41  30  25 cm3
due to viscous effects (Darcy term) [74], which becomes important double-walled corrugated boxes with 15 different ventilation and
at low flow speeds. In addition, DP could also be calculated as hand-hole designs. The numerical model was verified by compar-
DP = 37.487 TOA1.5 G2a [65], where TOA is the total opening area ing the results of simulations to those of experiments, and the
of the package. The relationship is consistent with the results of FEM simulation was consistent with laboratory results. The study
many studies [54,117] that found that DP through a vented package reported that an increase in the radius of curvature at both ends
follows approximately a quadratic relationship with the average of the hand hole provided better stress relaxation and lower stress.
airflow velocity which is related to airflow rate. Van der Sman Some factors were recommended; for example, the length of the
et al. [77] also stated that pressure drop scales as TOA1.5. major axis of the ventilation hole should be less than 1/4 of the
The optimization of fresh-fruit packaging designs has recently depth of the box, the ratio of the minor axis to the major axis
been put forward as one of the key factors for minimizing energy should be 1/3.5–1/2.5, and even-numbered holes should be located
consumption during forced-convection cooling of produce symmetrically, which could achieve the minimum decrease in box-
[10,21,66,67,114]. Unfortunately, very few studies exist that focus compression strength.
on this topic. The energy required for a ventilation system is asso- Biancolini and Brutti [127] also used a FEM model to evaluate
ciated with many factors (e.g., the refrigeration equipment, lights, the mechanical characteristics of paperboard, starting from the
fans, etc.) [67]; however, this energy only includes the contribution paper characteristics and microgeometry. The reliability of the pro-
of the packaging, which enables a direct comparison of the energy posed model was checked by comparing the numerical results with
efficiency of different packaging designs, that of boxes, or the the experiment results, obtaining an excellent agreement first from
stacking pattern [10]. the ECT test and then from the BCT test. However, these studies are
328 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331

based on single boxes, which are often not filled with fresh pro- determined by the accuracy of experiment results. Due to the
duce. Therefore, the method cannot be used to effectively evaluate complexity of internal structure within packages when they filled
the strength of boxes filled with produce. In addition, pallet stack- with trays and produce, some physical phenomena are difficult
ing strength is usually not explicitly quantified because it involves to be measured with high spatial and temporal resolution (e.g.,
lengthy and more complex experiments [128]. Thus, future the characteristics of airflow and heat transfer inside ventilated
research should be directed towards analyzing the stacking packages, the CHTCs, the temperature variation of the whole fruit,
strength for entire pallets of boxes filled with produce with various etc.) [131]. As mentioned previously (see Section 4.1), the point
vent openings and various stacking and storage arrangements. temperature is often used to represent the temperature of the
whole product in field or laboratory experiments, which leads to
a great deviation between experiment results and actual values.
5. Future developments
Therefore, the accuracy of CFD models will be erroneous is these
experimental data are used to validate advanced numerical
5.1. Physical-parameter estimation
simulations. These shortages limit CFD models in cold-chain applica-
tions. In particular, they limit the use of the CFD models to study
Parameter estimation plays an important role in physical mod-
transport processes down to the microscale level.
eling and is directly affect the accuracy of the simulation results.
These limitations are the main motivations behind research
Excessively simplified models often ignore some parameters and
toward more advanced experiment techniques. Future develop-
therefore fail to capture the essential dynamics of a system, while
ments are expected to lead to better integration of advanced tech-
excessive consideration of certain parameters may amplify the
nologies with experimental equipment and to the establishment of
complexity of the entire simulation, which is a disadvantage for
laboratories specially equipped for forced-air precooling of fresh
predicting the change of specific physical phenomenon and signif-
produce [132]. In this way, detailed experimental data can not only
icantly increases computational cost due to some nonlinear models
be obtained but also be more accurate, allowing CFD models to be
that are included in the iterative computations (e.g., respiration-
validated. In addition, this will also greatly promote the application
rate models, evaporation-rate model, condensing-rate model,
of CFD in other fields.
etc.) [129]. Some research has shown that the very low heat rate
generated by respiration (about 0.5% of the total heat load) is unli-
5.3. Energy conservation
kely to significantly affect the cooling rate in a typical precooling
process [96,130]. In addition, the uncertainty of the respiration rate
Energy coefficient (EC) is usually used to measure the effect of a
is also significantly influenced by the uncertainty of the simulation
particular cooling method on the cooling-system efficiency during
results. The respiration-rate model used, as with most respiration-
precooling [66,67]. EC is defined as the ratio of total thermal
rate models found in the literature, does not consider changes in
energy removed from the product (i.e. field and respiration heat)-
respiration rate due to commodity senescence, the sudden change
during precooling and the total electrical energy used through the
of storage conditions, or even different batches of the same com-
cooling process (i.e. the energy inputted to the refrigeration system
modity. Therefore, additional nonlinear models should be chosen
and the forced-air precooling equipment).As such, EC can also be
to properly account for different produce or processing surround-
known as a kind of coefficient of performance (COP) of the entire
ings (i.e., humidity, temperature, and duration) rather than using
cooling facility. As shown by Thompson [67], the average EC for
‘‘the more the better” approach [129]. For large spaces (e.g., cold
forced-air cooling facilities did not improve significantly over the
room, refrigerated vehicle, refrigerated containers) the package-
last of 20 years. Therefore, an international research priority
to-produce equivalent-diameter ratio is greater than ten, the pur-
should be to improve the EC of cooling processes, which is also
pose of model-based analysis is usually to understand the macro
an important challenge for further improving the overall economic
phenomenon of spatiotemporal heat and mass transfer. For this
benefits of the cold chain.
case, the porous-medium approach may be the best approach
The demand for fresh produce have been increasing through the
due to the simplified geometrical models of produce (i.e., the size,
world, and the worldwide exports of fruits and vegetables
shape, surface heat, and mass-transfer coefficients of agricultural
exceeded 150 billion USD in 2010 [133]. However, to maintain pro-
products are ignored) and may significantly reduce computational
duct quality, extend shelf life, and reduce food loss, the energy con-
time and simulation costs. For a single package or for several pack-
sumed in the food industry accounts for approximately 30% of the
ages stacked on a pallet (where the ratio of package-to-produce
world’s energy consumption [134], and 8% of the electrical energy
diameter is less than ten), a direct CFD simulation must be used
used in this industry is for refrigeration [135]. This is especially
to obtain the detailed characteristics of airflow and heat transfer
problematic because electricity mainly comes from coal-fired
within packages. In this case, some other models (e.g., biochemical
power plants in some countries, especially in the developing world
reaction, microbial reaction, mechanical stress, etc.) and more
[136–138]. Therefore, improving EC in the cooling process not only
complex multiphysical and multiscale models should also be incor-
effectively reduces the amount of electrical energy used in the
porated into the direct CFD simulation when these models greatly
entire cold-chain system, but also reduces food, energy, and
influence the quality of fresh produce. All above, the selection of
resource insecurity. In addition, this approach is also conducive
physical parameters should aim at the important physical phe-
to reducing the carbon emissions and thereby alleviating the asso-
nomenon to be observed in modelling, so as to realize the improve-
ciated environmental problems.
ment of pertinence and high efficiency of CFD numerical
Airflow rate, cooling time, and pressure drop are directly related
simulations.
to the amount of energy input to operate the cooling equipment
(compressor and fans). The ventilating rate of packages and the
5.2. Model validation fruit-stacking pattern in the package are major factors in increas-
ing cooling airflow resistance and prevent direct contact between
Concurrent experimentation should be done to verify predic- cooling air and produce. Thus, further research on packaging
tions, particularly where assumptions are incorporated into the designer mains an important way to reduce the energy required
model (e.g., simplified geometrical shape, constant surface heat for precooling different kinds of fresh produce in the future.
and mass-transfer coefficients, no volume change during process- CFD is an indispensable research tool in the continuous process
ing, etc.). However, the validity of a simulation is directly of improvement. In addition, hardware innovations in cooling
 C.-J. Zhao et al. / Applied Energy 168 (2016) 314–331 329

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