The discomfort caused by the cold air overspill from vertical refrigerated display cases in supermarkets is widely accepted as being a problem to customers. This, together with the adverse effect on case performance caused by heat and moisture transfer across the air curtain, suggests that there may be room for improvement in the design and fundamental operation of these display fixtures. Presents a two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a vertical dairy display case that could be used in the design and optimisation of such equipment. Comparisons are also made with experimentally obtained values of velocity and temperature measured around the case in order to assess the accuracy and viability of such a model. Parameters of the computer model, such as the size of the calculation grid, the turbulence model, and the discretisation scheme, were also varied to determine their effect on the converged solution, and these results are presented. The CFD model showed good qualitative agreement with measured values and requires only fine tuning to make it quantitatively accurate.

KEYWORDS: year 1997, Refrigerators, commercial, supermarkets, performance, heat flow, moisture, optimisation, operations, comparing, speed, room temperature, accuracy, calculating, calculating, air flow, thermal comfort, display equipment