Passive System Based on PCM for Thermal Management of Refrigerated Trucks

The main role to ensure the quality and safety of perishable products along the cold chain is played by the refrigerated transport. Recently, scientists have been focusing their efforts on the development of innovative solutions to decrease the whole impact of the distribution and transportation of refrigerated products. Hence, in this work, the charging performance of a novel insulated wall consisted of the traditional insulation material layer wrapping a second layer made of PCM was analysed. More specifically, 2D transient numerical analyses were run in Ansys Fluent 18.2, by setting to the refrigerated cell a varying hour by hour solar irradiation from 6 AM to 4 PM. Different scenarios, aiming at investigating the effects of the presence of 25% of product load inside the refrigerated cell, with or without food heat respiration were also investigated. Besides, for the long-distance route no door openings nor additional heat infiltrations were considered.