Enhanced airflow by axial fans is widely applied for efficient convective heat transfer and thermal management. The authors previously proposed the use of additional axial fans to enhance the airflow in a cold room and obtained improved cooling performance as well as increasing irreversibility through experimental thermodynamic analysis. In this study, the proposed strategy is numerically investigated via a validated computational model to evaluate distribution characteristics of airflow, temperature and entropy generation. The trade-off between cooling performance and irreversibility was analyzed under different operating conditions of additional axial fans. Numerical results indicated more homogeneous airflow and temperature distribution with increasing entropy generation caused by additional axial fans between produce bins. Additional axial fans with an operating angular velocity of 55 rad•s⁻¹ at five positions between produce bins resulted in 18 to 37% improvement of cooling performance and 47% higher irreversibility when compared to the case without additional axial fans. An improved trade-off between improved cooling performance and increasing irreversibility could be achieved with lowering the operating angular velocity and reduced number of additional axial fans.

轴流风扇增强的气流广泛应用于高效的对流传热和热管理。作者先前提议使用额外的轴流风扇来增强冷室中的气流，并通过实验热力学分析获得改进的冷却性能以及增加的不可逆性。在这项研究中，通过经过验证的计算模型对所提出的策略进行了数值研究，以评估气流、温度和熵产生的分布特征。在附加轴流风扇的不同运行条件下，分析了冷却性能和不可逆性之间的权衡。数值结果表明，随着农产品箱之间额外的轴流风扇产生的熵增加，气流和温度分布更加均匀。与没有额外轴流风扇的情况相比，在农产品箱之间的五个位置设置^-1导致冷却性能提高 18% 到 37%，不可逆性提高 47%。通过降低运行角速度和减少额外轴流风扇的数量，可以在改进的冷却性能和增加的不可逆性之间实现更好的权衡。