Modeling the thermal performance of an aquaculture pond heating with greenhouse

A transient analytical model is presented to study the effectiveness of an even shape greenhouse used for heating the aquaculture pond during extreme winters. The model was solved for the climatic conditions of Delhi (Latitude: 28°35′N), representing the northern India (comprising the states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Padesh) for the typical day (20th January) of winter. A simple trapezoidal design of aquaculture pond is proposed. Parametric studies involved the effects of length, breadth, depth, inclination of lining of fishpond, depth of water and air change in the greenhouse on the water heating in the fishpond. The performance of fishpond was assessed in terms of temperature gain, mean thermal efficiency and thermal load leveling. The optimum parameters for fishpond were 30 m length, 16 m breadth, 1.25 m depth, 1.0 m water depth, 75° lining inclination, and 8 air changes per hour for maximum temperature gain, maximum thermal efficiency and minimum thermal load leveling. A 20 °C rise in water temperature could be achieved during the day and 11 °C in the month of January. The maximum heat gain and loss are at around 16:00 and 7:00 h of the days, respectively.