Investigation of the influence of air guiding strips on the performance of multi-deck refrigerated display cabinets using CFD modelling

To decrease the cooling capacity of open-type display cabinets, air guiding strips are proposed to be used at the front face of shelves. A refrigerated food multi-deck display cabinet with a plug-in cooling unit is selected as a prototype, and a 3-D CFD transient model is developed in ANSYS-Fluent 14.5, to simulate the performance of the cabinet. The air guiding strips were found to maintain the air velocity and the integrity of the air curtain, reducing turbulence and the entrainment of ambient air into the cabinet. For the same product temperature the cabinet with the air guiding strips was found to reduce the cooling load by up to 25% compared to the cabinet without the strips. These results need to be further validated against experimental tests at controlled conditions in the laboratory.