Abstract
Controlling and thus understanding the state of a sugarbeet postharvest storage system is important part of production. The rate of airflow is central in the thermodynamic processes that occur during storage. It determines the rate at which ambient air and the air inside the storage system exchange through advection, and the rates at which thermal energy and moisture transfer between the beets and the air. Unfortunately, the working environment has meant that direct measurement in a commercial setting has to date been beyond the available resources. Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to model the airflow and thermodynamics in these systems has permitted insight to be gained. Using the open-source software programs R (physical model creation, and results analysis), OpenFOAM (CFD modelling), and ParaView (results visualization), a series of CFD models of stylized sugarbeet clamps were developed. The clamp was modeled as 9 m wide and 3 m high, and as either uncovered, or covered with the non-woven polypropylene fleece TopTex®. Experimental data for temperature in the clamp and ambient temperature and wind velocity was taken from experiments conducted by NBR, Sweden, in 2011/12. The porous medium approach was adopted, and Darcy-Forchheimer (D-F) parametrization applied. The D-F values for the clamp region were derived from previous research (Tabil et al, 2003), alternatively by applying a variant of the Ergun equation. D-F values for TopTex were supplied by SolMax (previously known as TenCate Industrial Fabrics). This poster will present results from the first version of the model, with a focus on the airflow dynamics. This project is part of a larger ongoing series looking to develop models of fluid- and thermodynamics in sugarbeet postharvest storage systems that will be used in research and in the information industry sends to growers.
