earticle

영어

Temperature increases and air flow stagnation caused by the large temperature variation between the cultivation beds and the close irradiation by artificial lightings in a vertical type plant factory serve as chief factors in the deterioration of crop quality and growth. In preceding researches, the methods to resolve these problems and to improve air flow rate were applied by utilizing air flow devices such as air conditioning devices and external fans. However, enhancing the air flow by an external fan reduces the temperature deviation in the entire area of the facility. To maintain a uniform growth environment, there is a limit in improving air flow, which is locally stagnant. Therefore, the factors that hinder the growth of the crops need to be removed by promoting air flow stagnation near the crops with a simultaneous operation of the inner fans at each cultivation bed. Firstly, CFD simulation process is required because a lot of time and cost are involved to establish a testing environment and cultivation experiment in order to investigate improvement effect of the cultivation environment according to the operation mode of air flow device. Experiment and analysis have to be carried out based on these simulation results. This study attempts a CFD simulation, and compares and analyzes the improvement effect on the growth environment according to the operation mode of air flow devices for the vertical type plant factory. By measuring cultivation environment under the smart environment based on the sensor network, accuracy of simulation result is verified, and effect on the improvement of growth rate is investigated through crop cultivation experiment. Experiment results showed that control condition of Case H wherein internal fans are additionally operated was the most suitable in maintaining set temperature, improving air flow, and growth rate of the crops.