THE EFFECT OF COOLSTORE DESIGN AND OPERATION ON AIR RELATIVE HUMIDITY

Coolstore air relative humidity (RH) is an important factor affecting the quality of horticultural products, particularly via product moisture loss. RH also has an important effect on the performance of the refrigeration evaporators and can affect the strength of paper-based packaging materials. In a large New Zealand apple coolstore, RH increased from about 75% early in season to 90% at the end, as activities in the coolstore and external conditions changed. A steady-state analysis of sensible and latent heat entry and heat removal during four typical operational periods over the season was carried out. Predicted RH was in good agreement with measured dat. For the coolstore studied, evaporator surface area and the occurrence of pre-cooling within the coolstore were the design and operational factors having greatest effect on RH. Door protection and management, and floor insulation were the next more significant factors. The method of analysis has more general application and ould be used in a variety of situations so that design for optimum RH can be performed systematically.