Forced-air cooling of polylined horticultural produce: Optimal cooling conditions and package design

Based on the results an alternative package was designed with the aim of redistributing the incoming refrigerated airflow to channel cool air through the pallet layers before directing it towards the slowest cooling packages, located at the back of the pallet. Evaluating the new design at the optimal conditions for the current package showed that at constant flowrate both pressure drop and energy requirement to achieve half-cooling time (HCT) were reduced by 24%, while improving cooling uniformity and pallet throughput per week. Alternatively, keeping the pressure drop constant required a similar energy input, while further increasing the cooling uniformity and pallet throughput.