Thorpe, Graham R (2008) The design of hydrocoolers using MATLAB: an addendum to Thorpe, G. R. (2007) Postharvest Biology and Technology, 42, pp 280-289. Technical Report. Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. (Unpublished)

Abstract

Very little research has been published on the design of hydrocoolers used to cool fruits and vegetables. Thorpe (2007) recently employed correlations used primarily for the design of packed bed chemical process equipment to analyse the design and operation of hydrocoolers. It is recognised that the approach adopted by Thorpe (2007) is by no means exclusive of others, and there is no doubt that his approach will be either refined or jettisoned in favour of more sophisticated approaches. Furthermore, as the speed and memory capacities of computers increase we can be certain that the heat, mass and momentum transport processes that occur in hydrocoolers will be quantified in much more detail. The ability to consider increasing detail is one of the underlying features of contemporary engineering science. However, there is no doubt that correlations will remain an indispensable weapon in the design engineer's armoury for the foreseeable future. In this brief work I present the MATLAB scripts used to obtain the results reported by Thorpe (2007). The work is motivated by a desire to: 1. Provide readers with an insight how to translate the equations presented in the paper into MATLAB. This is essentially a didactic aim. 2. Save reader's time if they wish to implement the analysis. 3. Provide a springboard for people to carry out further research on hydrocoolers. 4. Enable the work to be scrutinised for its accuracy. 5. Provide space for an agonistic discourse on the design and operation of hydrocoolers. This work is not a user-manual for the MATLAB scripts which are best regarded as works in progress. This work was prompted by a grant received by the Smart Water Fund of Victoria to investigate the design of water-efficient hydrocoolers.

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