Analysis of the Thermal Behavior of a New Structure of Protected Agriculture Established in a Region of Tropical Climate Conditions

Abstract

Determining airflow patterns and their effect on the distribution of microclimate variables such as temperature is one of the most important activities in naturally ventilated protected agricultural structures. In tropical countries, this information is used by farmers and decision makers when defining climate management strategies and for crop-specific cultural work. The objective of this research was to implement a validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model in 3D to determine the aerodynamic and thermal behavior of a new protected agricultural structure established in a warm climate region in the Dominican Republic. The numerical evaluation of the structure was carried out for the hours of the daytime period (6–17 h), the results found allowed to define that the CFD model generates satisfactory predictions of the variables evaluated. Additionally, it was found that airflow patterns are strongly affected by the presence of porous insect screens, which generate moderate velocity flows (<0.73 m s−1) inside the structure. It was also identified that the value of the average temperature inside the structure is directly related to the air flows, the level of radiation and the temperature of the outside environment.