Exploitable results Air conditioning using stainless steel pipe & clean exchanger for food products; ACE The aim of this project was to develop a new atmospheric air conditioning system using smooth-tube, horizontal thermal exchangers for the food industry. The central thrust of the project was to find suitable thermal exchangers and validate the hygienic performance of this atmospheric air conditioning system. Additional aspects such as the problems of industrialisation (flexibility and safety) and cost will be addressed, along with an underlying concern to reduce the impact on environment. The whole process will be validated by tests carried out in laboratories and food factories. Regarding thermal research, the results we reached in terms of mathematical and numeric modelling make for possible results with superior performances to the initially supposed ones. This is very promising for the future industrial development as it was one major limitation factor pointed out by MONDIAL FRIGO when they built they first machines. Heat exchangers are designed following mathematical models and their functioning, optimised according to a whole set of criteria influencing heat transfers. The second step was to validate and correct numeric models in accordance with the results of the industrial trials and to design the software regarding the performance of the exchanger as foreseen in the project. The results prove that the numeric model with small amendments (between 5 to 15% depending on temperature, hygrometry or air velocity) is validated. A software was created in order to do accurate sizing for end users (agro-food plants) needs. The other research tasks were based upon the hygienic conception of the exchanger integrated into an air conditioning box thoroughly cleanable as well. A complete pilot prototype has been built in order to do all necessary tests to validate Thermal, Hygrometric, Hygienic, and food products requirements. The cleaning tests have been done note only on the exchanger but on the whole equipment itself and the results prove that it is easily cleanable and it satisfies hygiene recommendations (EHEDG). In terms of hygrometry, temperature homogeneity tests were done with the complete machine and demonstrated that with some adaptation, regulation and optimisation, we can reach the foreseen target (More than 95 Hr and were around 93%) In fact, after plate form trials and optimisation, tests done with food products in factories reduced losses due improving food product safety and quality (better quality on cheese crusts for example). In this case, with regulation optimisation, the high hygrometry, of 95 Hr, was obtained continuously. Currently, the project has finished and ready for industrialisation and commercialisation. Despite its recent completion, the contractor is about to sell some complete air conditioners, based on ACE technology, to a dairy which invests more than 1 Million Euro for the air conditioning. Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
