Optimization of airflow inside the refrigerated semi-trailer

Refrigerated semi-trailers are frequently used road vehicles for the transport of frozen products. Refrigerated semi-trailer is consists of a carrier chassis, insulated cab and refrigeration unit. During transportation of products, in case of the insufficient and excessive cold airflow around the goods, quality of the transported products are highly affected. Air distribution ducts and loading patterns are the most critical factors on the cooling performance of refrigerated semi-trailers. In the scope of this study, two different air ducts were designed in order to improve the airflow inside the empty trailer cab and the cooling performances of air ducts were compared with computational fluid dynamics analyzes. Then the load was filled up to a certain level in the cabin and the performance of the air duct in the filled cab was compared to the standard vehicle. Real scale vehicle tests have been performed to verify the accuracy of computational fluid dynamics analyzes. Tests and analyzes were continued until the temperature in the cabin decreased from + 30 ° C to -20 ° C and the elapsed times were compared. At the end of the study, it was found that the air ducts benefit the homogeneous distribution of the temperature inside the cabin and significantly improved the time of the average temperature to -20 ° C.