Optimal design for energy usage of cooling system in animal farm using CFD model

Abstract

© 2019, Engineering and Technology Publishing. All rights reserved. Animal farming is the significant propulsion for Thailand’s economy. Animal house is not only the important contributor to their quality but also the factors controller for their hygiene. The major cost to operate an animal house is the energy cost to control the most suitable condition for animals. Thai agriculturists normally operated their farms based on their understanding or their own experiment without any analysis. This may lead to the wrong solutions and unsustainable condition. In this work, the swine house was considered as a study case to optimize condition between suitable condition (thermo-neutral zone) for pigs and energy cost. The cooling system includes cooling pad and exhaust fans were constructed to reduce and control both temperature and moisture in the house. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models were modeled and analyzed the factors of wind direction, temperature and temperature distribution throughout the swine house. The analysis result was used to determine the operation of exhaust fans. The result showed that, in average temperature day, the operation of exhaust fan can reduce to 80-40%. The results of all study cases were analyzed to create the operation chart for the automotive controlling system in the future.