Heat and Fluid Flow in an Agricultural Greenhouse

In this work, we interested to the numerical simulation of natural convection in a closed model greenhouse heated by tubes. A greenhouse box subjected to different boundary conditions on the roof like the imposed temperature, convective flux and mixed flux was studied. The considered mathematical model is a system of partial differential equations formed by the continuity, the momentum and the energy equations. The commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code Fluent was used for numerical simulations based on a finite volume method. In each case, we have studied the thermal and dynamic flow parameters in the greenhouse, such as the average velocity and the average temperature. The obtained results present a good agreement with the experimental data and show a strong dependence of the air climate in the greenhouse. These results help the farmers to set up a greenhouse with materials and dimensions suitable for external conditions.