Thermal analysis of airflow inside a refrigerated container

A numerical study of conjugated heat transfer in ceiling-slot refrigerated containers is carried out to analyze the temperature distribution effectiveness and to determine the ventilation characteristics. The effect of slot size on thermal characteristics is studied by considering half-span and full-span injection. The container walls are defined as conductive opaque and are interacting with outside environment. The outer surface heat transfer coefficients of conductive walls are computed by studying the flow around the refrigerated truck. The Reynolds number at the slot exit varied between 2 × 104 ≤ Re ≤ 2 × 105. The gravity effect is taken into account, and the coupled mass, momentum, and energy equations are discretized in finite volumes. The heat transfer coefficients of inner flow are presented as plots of the mean Nusselt number versus the modified Reynolds number. The maximum dispersion in the numerical data being at 14.54-percent, the mean Nusselt number, the modified Reynolds number, and the aspect ratio of the container are correlated.