A review of the use and design of produce simulators for horticultural forced-air cooling studies

• Produce simulators provide experimental advantage in cooling studies.
• A review of previously used produce simulators is provided.
• A lack of design guidelines has resulted in the use of inappropriate simulators.
• Design should aim to replicate appropriate transport phenomena.

Forced air cooling studies are hindered by the practical difficulties and cost associated with pallet scale investigations. Produce simulators are a potential solution for overcoming some of these difficulties. Despite their common use in precooling research, there are a lack of design guidelines for such simulators in the literature which in some case has led to their inappropriate use. This review examines previous use of produce simulators in produce cooling studies in the context of transport phenomena theory. This allows constraints to be proposed which facilitate the design of produce simulators that can replicate transport phenomena in horticultural produce. These include the requirements of geometric and thermal property matching as well as the practical constraints imposed on produce simulators. It is suggested that future computational modelling work is well suited to the establishment of produce simulator design guidelines which incorporate complex effects such as the impact of variation in produce geometry on flow. The material engineering challenges posed by produce simulators are also discussed.