A poorly designed air curtain is degenerated by mixing, overspreading, and overspill. Turbulence causes an increase in entrainment rate of warm air into the system.  As the entrainment rate increases, more warm air infiltration into the case increases the cooling load and consequently the energy consumption. Warm air infiltration is responsible for about 80% of the refrigeration load in current systems. Manufacturers and users of OVRDCs are preparing for the future's stricter energy standards.

There are many design parameters that can be altered to minimize the infiltration rate and cooling load that will lead into the design of a “better” or “optimized” display cases. Prismitech uses a hybrid computational and experimental technique to achieve this goal.

By simple adjustments, a significant amount of energy of 12% can be saved with no impact on food product temperature. Prismitech has not only developed software to analyze many design options of OVRDC’s that can lead to developing even more efficient units, but also can develop customized software for similar units where infiltration of warm air into a unit may occur.

Technology Impacts

By altering flow or geometric components in refrigerated display cases utilized in all grocery stores, Prismitech will save the nation millions of dollars per year, reduce green house gas emissions, and transfer the savings onto consumers.

Coolifficient Software

Is based on an Artificial Neural Network program developed based on our hybrid approach. It can predict infiltration rate into Open Vertical Refrigerated Display Cases (OVRDC) based on provided flow and geometrical parameters. Provides a tool for minimizing display cases’ infiltration rate. Resulting in reduced energy consumption, generating costs savings for the customer.