| Summary: | The transportation of agro-products is essential for all of us. The quality of food after
transportation is very important - none of us will buy poor quality food. In September
2002, A&FI started the three year research project QUEST(Quality and Energy efficiency
in the Storage and Transportation of Agro-materials), with the focus on the use of containers
to transport products overseas. The aim of QUEST is to find ways to reduce energy
consumption for climate conditioning during transportation of perishable goods, and to
monitor the product quality in order to minimize product losses. To achieve these goals,
predictive models that describe the climate in one box, in a layer consisting out of nine
boxes, and in a stack (few layers on top of each other) should be developed. The transport
containers used, have a cooling unit in the front and a sensor system measuring the
temperature and humidity inside the container. The goods are stored in cardboard boxes
that are stacked in piles on pallets. The climate inside the container can be controlled by
the circulation of cooled air. The main goal of this project is to develop a two-dimensional
model predicting the climate in one layer of boxes. The company A&FI already has a
model for the whole container, and wants to plug my resulting model, for one layer of
boxes, into their model.
First I model a box and a slit (space between the boxes) separately. Subsequently I
derive a network model for one layer consisting of nine boxes. The idea of the network is
to replace the temperature distribution by the averaged temperature related to each box
and slit. Such a method is strongly based on the description of heat transfer using the
analogy with electrical circuits.
My model makes it possible to determine the average temperatures at any moment of
time, i.e. , predict the climate within a layer inside a transport container. My model brings
A&FI another step closer in the process to have a global model for the whole container. I
recommend further extension of our model to a stack of boxes (to three dimensions). === Thesis (M.Sc. (Applied Mathematics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.
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