The temperature of a frozen product while it is being carried should not exceed a limit established by law. Stopping the refrigerating equipment overnight is common practice in order to ensure that the driver gets a good night’s sleep. Control parameters can be set on the thermostat of the refrigerating system in order to remove heat from the product during the day that neutralizes the energy gain at night. A computer model was developed in the TRNSYS program environment to study the effect of this strategy on the transport conditions for the product. In order to validate the results of the simulation, two temperature probes were placed inside a trailer transporting frozen apricots. The increase in temperature in the center of the trailer while the equipment was stopped overnight was closely approximated by the TRNSYS simulation. The discrepancies obtained revealed a poor air distribution, caused by uneven placement of cargo pallets.

Units: Dual