Newton Fund (Invitation Only) - Dearman liquid air TRU systems for cold chain in India

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The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) estimates that 200m tonnes of perishable produce could be preserved if thedeveloping world had the same level of cold chain as the developed world, this accounts for up to 40% of crops harvestedin India. The lack of cold chain infrastructure in India, particularly the lack of transport refrigeration (TRUs) for the safetransport of food must be addressed to reduce the losses. India's National Centre for Cold-chain Development has statedthat India requires a further 52,000 TRUs simply to catch up with current production, excluding any future growth. Thisinnovative industrial research project will optimise the proven zero-emission, affordable, novel Dearman transportrefrigeration system technology, focusing on the liquid nitrogen tank, for the Indian market. The project will be completed byfive core beneficiaries with the support of an advisory partner who will review project aims and achievements on a quarterlybasis.The research into the LiN tank design will look at novel ways of dealing with the expected high levels of boil off if a standardtank is used. Using the current configuration would lead to reduced operating times and increased fill frequencies - the newdesign will look to minimise these issues and develop a new tank design to reduce the sloshing of liquid nitrogen using fluidflow analysis and modelling and mechanical design optimisation. This will achieve a new product optimised for the Indianmarket that could pave the way for a new commercial product and IP in the form of new patents.The proposed project will be conducted in collaboration with our academic partner, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay(IITB), conducted in parallel to the other work packages lead by our Industrial partners Dearman, Artic Refrigeration,Cartwright and ColdEX. UoB will lead the mechanical design and optimisation of the LiN tank as described in WP6 and willcontribute to the fluid flow analysis and modelling. The tank technologies developed at Birmingham will be supported bystate-of-the-art facilities housed within the EPSRC funded Birmingham Centre for Cryogenic Energy Storage including arange of measurement and analytical facilities, UoB's BLUEBear high performance computing facilities and the Government/ INNOVATE UK funded Institute for Thermal Energy Manufacturing Accelerator (part of the Thermal-EnergyResearch Accelerator, T-ERA).