Towards a comprehensive modelling framework for flammable refrigerant leaks in transport containers

Recent research has identified the importance of understanding computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in the analysis of flammable refrigerant leaks. Limited work has been documented on the use of CFD in refrigerated transport applications. This paper describes progress towards a CFD-based simulation framework to assess the risks of flammable refrigerant leaks in a marine refrigerated container. The paper details a range of tests of refrigerant leaks and quantitative validation of a CFD model setup for leaks that occur when evaporator fans in the refrigeration unit are powered on. Experimental and simulated results are presented for distributions of gas concentration within the container, along with temperature data. Results of a model performance study using the fractional bias, normalised mean square error, geometric mean bias and geometric variance of the datasets are also presented. In this study, all performance metrics fall within the acceptance criteria and therefore, the modelling methodology is deemed robust and accurate.