A Simulation and Experiment Study on Temperature of a Forced

Ventilated Greenhouse
Yun ZHAO*a, Quanfeng HUANGa,b, Jieqiang ZHAOa,b, Defa SONGa
a
Faculty of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China
b
College of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science & Technology, Ganzhou 341000,
China

ABSTRACT

A three-dimension temperature distribution image of a forced ventilated greenhouse is given by calculating

steady-state temperature fields based on a computational fluid dynamics modeling of a multi-span greenhouse from CFD
software FLUENT. A experiment of measuring temperatures in several specific position inside the greenhouse and other
climate parameters outside is conducted in a real production greenhouse, and a comparison is done to verify the accuracy of
CFD model of the presented greenhouse. The results show that if more boundary conditions are defined with the measured
value a more accurate model can be expected and some excellent prediction of temperature can be achieved.

Keywords: temperature simulation; forced ventilation; greenhouse temperature; computational flow dynamics (CFD)

1. INTRODUCTION
Natural and forced ventilation are two basic ventilation in cooling technology of agriculture greenhouses. Natural
ventilation has many advantages like low cost, less energy consuming but has other disadvantage such as uncertain
ventilation rate depending on ambient condition (wind). On the contrary, forced ventilation has ability to maintain certain
ventilation rate so as to keep a stable temperature inside greenhouse which is necessity for some plant productions, even it
has a disadvantage of energy consuming, so there are some trend to use forced ventilation for flower production in
Zhejiang province of China. For a purpose of energy saving and optimal control of climate inside the greenhouse to make
a comfortable condition for plant, it is necessary to know more about behaviour of temperature responding to forced
ventilation in greenhouse.
In recent decades computational flow dynamics (CFD) is successfully applied in analysis of climate condition of
1～4
agricultural greenhouse[ ]. More recently some methodology approach were studied in order to simulate numerically
(CFD) a greenhouse equipped with fan and pad evaporative cooling system in order to identify the critical parameters that
affect the efficiency of fan and pad evaporative cooling systems in greenhouses[5,6]. The aim of this work is to do the
experimental verification of the proposed numerical model and the comparison of the numerical results with the
experiment results.

2. Experiments and methods

The experiments were done in a eight-span greenhouse with a total floor area of about 3072 m² and gutters oriented
north-south. The greenhouse whose gutters are 3 meters high was located in the Shimen town of Tongxiang city, Zhejiang
province of China. The greenhouse was equipped with pad and fan system to cool temperature in summer. Pad was
installed the north side wall and the fan with a diameter of 1.2 meter was installed on the opposite wall 40 meters away. In
side of the greenhouse, a kind of plant was planted in cap which was kept in the stocks 1.5 m above ground. The
greenhouse air temperature was measured by copper-constantan thermocouples that were shielded from direct solar
radiation. The temperature and sensors were installed in the middle cross section of the greenhouses midway between the
southern and northern walls as shown in Fig. 1. A meteorological station, located out side of the greenhouse, measured the
ambient conditions. Solar radiation was measured with a solar meter CMP3 of ZIP ZONON. The solar radiation outside the
greenhouse during the experiments was 890 ± 25W/m2. The data were recorded every 5 s by a CX1000 Campbell
micro-logger and transferred to a PC daily.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +086-0573-83644043; fax: +086-0573-83641212.

E-mail address: zhaoyun182001@163.com

PIAGENG 2013: Intelligent Information, Control, and Communication Technology for Agricultural Engineering,
edited by Honghua Tan, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8762, 87620P · © 2013 SPIE
CCC code: 0277-786X/13/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.2019745

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 Outside shade net
Outside shade net

SS SS

ter
gutter
R Out monitoring point
é Inside shade net SS st
Inside shade net
n T31 Thermal couple 3 m T3 I 1
5m 5m
2.3 m
T41 0.4 m
C 7 Wet curtain
fan 1T1 T21 T4 T6 LC. T7 1
1.6 W ground
V T5 Ve y 0.6 m T5 I s5
,/ground 0.5 m

-< A [1 W
7 40 m
Fig.1 Experimental greenhouse structure and temperature measurement point

3. CFD model and simulation

3.1 Numerical model
(1) Model meshing
A 3D model of experimental greenhouse is built up and meshed with the geometrical processor Gambit. The main
characteristics of the experimental greenhouse, such as pad, fans, frame, covering materials were integrated in the
geometrical model (Fig.1). The grid quality, was controlled according to the EquiAngleSkew criterion .the meshes in pad
and fan zones are condensed for getting more accuracy.

(a)
W
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nq

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(b) (c)
Fig.2 Model meshed by Gambit
(a. general model; b. mesh refinement in pad; c. mesh refinement in fans)

(2) Turbulence models

The simulation assumes that the air in the greenhouse as a continuous, stable, incompressible Newtonian fluid. The air
flow near the wall is assumed and treated to be in according with the function of standard wall. The realizable k-ε model is
applied in this simulation for its higher accuracy in the greenhouse environment simulation.

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 (3) Radiation model
Solar radiation is an important factor affecting the environment within the greenhouse. The discrete ordinates (DO)
radiation model is used for its convenience in defining the greenhouse covering as semi transparent in this simulation.
(4) The boundary conditions
The accuracy of simulation largely depends on the accuracy of model boundary condition. The temperature what we
are interested in this work is mainly the result of gained heat by greenhouse from other subjectives. We assumed here that
the studied greenhouse get heat energy from net solar radiation coming inside, heat convection between air and covering
materials of greenhouse, heat convection between air and the ground. The inside space of greenhouse is defined as
computational fields of temperature with a velocity boundary of inlet (pad) and 8 velocity boundary of outlet (eight fans),
one radiation boundary conditions of ceiling of greenhouse, solid wall boundary conditions of the wall and ground. In
simulation the walls and ground are treated as the adiabatic to the ambient and their temperature are measured in
experiments and integrated into the model by convection heat transfer with inside air flow domain.
The related numerical boundary conditions and the initial values are determined according to the experiment data got
during testing period on September 20th of 2012 when pad and fan system started working. As shown in Tab. 1 and Tab.2
the average air speed of inlet is the average speed of air coming inside through pad which was measured by air speed meter
in 15 points of pad in different positions. The average of temperature of inlet is the wet bulb temperature of the ambient
measured outside of greenhouse with assuming that the pad efficiency is 100%, it look rational because pad is new. Other
values of temperatures listed in Tab.1 were measured and averaged from real time data got from experiment period. The
total solar radiation is total solar radiation coming inside the greenhouse. The convective heat transfer coefficient of the
soil calculated with reference to the experience obtained from the formula: h=1.86(TS-Ti)0.33 , where TS is the soil
temperature, Ti is the indoor temperature. The related physical parameters of components of greenhouse, which are
necessety in CFD model and simulation are presented in Tab.2.

Tab.1 Main parameters and boundary condition of simulation

Boundary element Value unit

Average air speed of inlet 0.5 m·s-1

o
Average temperature of inlet 24.4 C
Average air speed of the fan outlet 4.0 m·s-1
o
Roof temperature 38.0 C
o
Frame structure temperature 32.0 C
o
Temperature of the indoor soil 22.1 C
o
Temperature of outdoor 29.4 C
Heat transfer coefficient 3.86 w·(m2·k)-1
o
Initial temperature 32.0 C
Total solar radiation 466 w·m-2

Tab.2 Related parameters of main components of greenhouse

Parameter film soil air unit

Density 1100 1900 1.18 kg·m-3

CP 1047 2200 1006 J·(kg·K)-1
Thermal conductivity 0.04 2.0 0.024 W·(m·K)-1
Absorption coefficient 0.1 0.5 0.0
Scattering coefficient 0.0 1.0 0.0
Refractive Index 1.0 1.0 1.0
Emissivity 0.85 0.9 0.86

3.2 Simulation results and comparison

The commercially available CFD code Fluent 6.3 is applied in this work to simulate the temperature distribution in
experimental greenhouse. Because usually physical quantities in a flow field are determined by pressure distribution and
velocity distribution, the coupling calculation of pressure and velocity is conducted using SIMPLEC method here. Fig.2
shows simulation result of temperature distribution horizontally at the plane of 1.6 m higher than ground. From pad to fans,
there is a clear temperature gradient with lower temperature at pad and higher at fan. It tell us along the way of main stream
of air flow from the inlet to the outlet, the air get more energy and get itself warm until it is expelled by fans. Fig.3 shows

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 simulation result of temperature distribution vertically at the center of greenhouse. From ground to top, there is also a
significant temperature gradient with lower temperature at the position near ground and higher at the top cover.

3 07+702

3 039702

3 05,02

m.m

3.02

'
Coiitoin of Sosto ¡o.opooswo (lo) Contours of Static Temperature (k) (TIme= t3410e03) Oct 19, 2012
FLUE,11 3(3d, pMS, eke, unsteady)

Fig.3 Horizontal profile of temperature contours Fig.4 Vertical profile of temperature contours

In order to verify the accuracy of simulation model of CFD, the simulated temperature at positions where a thermal
couple was set up is got from the results of steady-state simulation of CFD and compared with the temperature value of the
test. As shown in Fig.1, T1 is the thermal couple near fan, T7 near pad; T3, T4 and T5 are in the same vertical line but T3
is the top with T4 in the middle and with T5 in the bottom; T6 is at a distance 5m from pad and T2 at a distance 5m from fan.
From the temperature value of the experimental, we can see that the temperature has horizontally such relation as T2> T4>
T6> T7, and vertically T3> T4> T5, which are in accordance with experimental data.
Tab.3 gives us the absolute errors and relative errors between the measured and the simulated temperature for T1 to T7.
It indicates the CFD model has a perfect prediction accuracy compared with that mentioned in other literatures. We
contribute this high accuracy to more boundary conditions being measured from experimental real time value in our work.

Table.3 Temperature of experiment and simulation

NO. T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7

Average temperature
of the experiment(oC) 27.78 28.60 28.40 28.22 25.96 26.72 25.18

Steady-state temperature
of the simulation(oC) 26.64 26.74 28.24 26.73 25.13 26.36 25.22

Absolute error (oC) 1.14 1.86 0.16 1.49 0.83 0.36 0.04

Relative error 4.1% 6.5% 0.6% 5.3% 3.2% 1.3% 0.2%

4. Conclusion
The comparison between the simulated temperature and experimental temperature shows that CFD simulation can
effectively reflect the actual temperature distribution in greenhouse. More accuracy of CFD model can be got if more real
time parameters being measured from experiment are applied to define the boundary conditions.

5. Acknowledgments
This work paper was funded by the research project (No. 2010C34004) of Science & Technology Department of
Zhejiang Province, P.R. China.
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