Study of the thermal performances of an agricultural greenhouse doted with storage system

Tunnel-type plastic greenhouses are widely used around the world, especially in the countries of the Mediterranean Basin, because of their low investment cost.These are efficient in winter and spring, where solar energy is... [ view full abstract ]

Tunnel-type plastic greenhouses are widely used around the world, especially in the countries of the Mediterranean Basin, because of their low investment cost.

These are efficient in winter and spring, where solar energy is useful and sufficient for greenhouse production. On the other hand, these greenhouses lose their effectiveness in summer where, the climate is very hot, which causes excessive overheating and strong hygrometries inside.

These extreme weather conditions affect the quality and quantity of the product and promote the development of certain diseases. On the physical plane, the greenhouse is a complex energy system in which all the different modes of thermal and mass exchange intervene. If they are relatively simple and well known, their coupling causes difficulties in the modeling of the system.

In this system, natural convection is a particularly important mechanism for heat exchange between indoor air and all other solid surfaces (floor, walls, roof, culture, air conditioning and heating systems).The aim objective of this work is study the storage system effects on thermal performance of an agricultural greenhouse in semi-arid climate case Ghardaïa.

The data climate are used for predict the energy needs as comparison with another without storage system.

The obtained results indicate that the outside needs are less than the no heated with 3 to 5°c during winter night. The thermal behavior of the greenhouse was study numerically and the results are corroborating with the literature.