Greenhouse Aerodynamics Analysis

Controlled environments have played an important role in the field of agriculture, allowing the grower to have more control on the climate conditions surrounding the crops. Failure to maintain suitable consistent conditions may lead to a decline in both quality and quantity of the plants and the uniformity of production. It is important to develop proper climate control strategies that work to keep these factors uniform along the greenhouse and within acceptable ranges to guarantee high quality yield. Interactions of the different environmental variables of a greenhouse are complex involving a number of physical and chemical properties of matter that are challenging to model realistically. Our research focus on developing methods of understanding these complex phenomena within controlled environments. We develop and validate 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to study the aerodynamics of greenhouse systems to improve climate uniformity and offer design recommendations for system manufacturers and growers.