Airflow and Thermal Management in NutraPonics Growing System for Quality Food Crop Production

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

NutraPonics Canada Corp., a Alberta-based company, develops an innovative Indoor Vertical AquaponicsFarming technology: the NutraPonics Growing System (NGS), a commercial plant and fish production systemwith proprietary growing methods based on the aquaponics for quality food crop production. However, due tolarge dimension and internal airflow resistance from the beds and plants, the NGS suffers from unbalanceddistribution of airflow: 20 m/s at the 1st row of beds whereas reduced to zero m/s at the 2nd row, consequentlyaffecting the desirable levels of temperature and humidity near the plants. Lack of airflow and/or high humidityare found to limit plant transpiration and lead to poor calcium intake for the plants, causing leaf tip burns andnecrosis. Therefore, there is an urgent need to optimize their NGS's airflow and thermal conditions for creatingbest growing conditions for the plants.This project proposes solving the problem by numerical simulations using computational fluid dynamics(CFD) techniques. However, in the case the NGS, the problem becomes complicated by the CFD simulationmodels based on the porous media models suitable for modeling different plants and for different growthstages. To keep a balance of simulation accuracy and time, therefore, this project takes a novel approachthrough "model verification and simulations" undertaken by four steps of combining "detailed but scaledsimulations" and "simplified full-scale simulations". This project involves many time-consuming CFDsimulations and associated analysis so two research assistants are assigned to undertake the taskssimultaneously including one postdoctoral fellow and one PhD student. Two site visits at NutraPonics are alsoplanned: one for 1st month of the project to collect in-situ modeling information and one for the finalpresentation and future collaborations. This project will contribute significantly to the NGS innovations bytackling the urgent airflow and thermal management issues to ensure healthy and nutrient-rich growingenvironment for achieving high-quality plant crop production, right here home-grown and branded in Canada.