Refrigeration in Antarctic Conditions

[Joseph2045]

Hi,

First time poster....so please be kind.

I am a HVAC Engineer with +35 yrs in the building services field. I have a project which is outside my usual scope of expertise and I am not 100% sure how to approach this.

I am working on the design of an Antarctic Scientific Research facility. it is to replace an existing base. There are a few refrigerated rooms (~4 degrees C) in the new facility - some for food and others for the scientists. The current facility uses normal commercial coolrooms with the condensing sets above the rooms.

Considering that the summer design is zero and the winter design is -30 degrees it seems madness to install more of the same. I want to use filtered outside air to be injected into the room where a re-circulation fan would distribute the air for even cooling air.

Here is the thing ....I have no idea on how much outside air would be needed. I assume that the room load is based on "pull down", the amount of material within the room, the type of material within the room and the frequency of opening

Any hints ?? I do not know where to start

TIA

joseph

[seanf]

Heat load also from lights, fans, heat transfer through the walls, heated freezer floors, air changes, people working in the room, rate of pull down, defrosts if needed.

With large range in outside air temps (and maybe other air conditions?), would it be easier to use something like a pumped brine loop to give more control?

Maybe the use of refrigeration units in the old facility is more about them being heat pumps.

[chemi-cool]

I am wondering about refrigerated rooms in Antartica.
Why not use outside air to cool the room?
I'm sure the temperature out are low enough.

[Joseph2045]

Heat load also from lights, fans, heat transfer through the walls, heated freezer floors, air changes, people working in the room, rate of pull down, defrosts if needed.

With large range in outside air temps (and maybe other air conditions?), would it be easier to use something like a pumped brine loop to give more control?

Maybe the use of refrigeration units in the old facility is more about them being heat pumps.

Thanks for the reply.

Pumped Brine - the facility is a ways back from the sea so maybe not that feasible. And it maybe a bit too single point critical. Still I will look into it as the de-sal has piping to the sea - some synergy maybe ??

I am more interested in the cooling sizing considerations ...... can you point to any papers/guides/ready reckoners to help. Should have mentioned that these cool rooms are all small, mostly about 10 sqm

Cheers

[sterl]

Older KRACK evaporator selection manual went into considerable detail about the thermal loads on rooms, for mainly food plant purposes. Contained a table of "Typicals" was quite useful where particularly operational variables could not be closely defined or sustained. Truck dock door open-close-static seal rate represents one example. https://www.krack.com/Technical%20Documents/RLE_082012.pdf

Danfoss has available on line an app for download called Coolselector for "normal" boxes....Also some explanation offered at https://theengineeringmindset.com/cooling-load-calculation-cold-room/....Actually some content in ASHRAE as well. All this on what would be more like "ordinary" climates.

I would caution that there are certain implementation "twists" involved doing this for arctic conditions: Especially as it applies to floor drains, underfloor warming and perimeter humidity....Some products decay pretty quickly left exposed in a low dewpoint space particularly rind fruits and green leaf types. And depending on building construction overall the building pad may very well be colder than the interior of your coolers....Also should you run a duct to draw minus 30-deg air through a plus 25 degree C. space the duct detailing gets pretty involved.

Army Corps Engineers published some stuff on construction details, local vapor barrier details, building ventilation and air circulation some time back...Some of their report was more concerned with maintenance shops and parts stores but I'm pretty sure there was portions of it on food storage as well.

[seanf]

I am more interested in the cooling sizing considerations .....

Sorry I meant, maybe the old facilities refrigeration units are there to reduce heat/energy loss to the outside, not just thinking about them being there to cool the coldrooms.
Would dumping the heat from the coldrooms to the outside increase the heating/energy requirement, compared to using a refrigeration unit to pump the heat thats been transfered to the coldrooms, back into the living space.