Solar assisted localized ventilation system for poultry brooding -

Abstract

Lately, food production operations are seriously impacting the environment by their emission of greenhouse gases and their heavy turn in the global warming; and their actual dependence on energy sources is developing the worries about its sufficiency and the rising costs of food production. The poultry industry is one sector where energy is highly demanded for the heating and ventilation systems in the chickens’ brooding period, and normally the heating systems are electrical, diesel or gas based ones. Consequently, this research aims at investigating the efficiency and performance of a solar-assisted localized heating and ventilation system for chicken brooding in a prototype of 16-pens poultry house. CFD simulations are carried out in order to model the heated space where a convective unit is employed to deliver the heating requirements and fresh air at the micro environment of the chicken according to the recommendations of the American Society to Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) and the European Gas Standards for Poultry Houses. The system performance is analyzed and compared to a conventional fuel-based fully mixed heating and ventilation system. The results show that the localized system has saved 74percent of the energy demanded in the conventional fully mixed system. Moreover, a solar system that relies on parabolic concentrators has been able to cover 84percent of the load required for a winter flock of six-weeks.