Thermal Modelling Of Asymmetric Overlap Roof Greenhouse With Experimental Validation

Global solar radiation availability model and thermal model for newly designed asymmetric overlap roof shape (AORS) greenhouse are presented and experimentally validated. Instantaneous solar radiation flux is utilised in a dynamic thermal model to ascertain the hourly plant and inside air temperature. The AORS is also compared with the previously developed two best greenhouse shapes. An experimental validation of both the models is carried out for the measured instantaneous solar radiation, plant and inside air temperature for a typical day in summer at Ludhiana (31 degrees N and 77 degrees E), Punjab, India. During the experimentation, a tomato crop was grown inside the greenhouse. From the results, it can be inferred that an east-west orientation AORS greenhouse should be preferred due to a lesser solar radiation capture in summer months. The predicted plant and air temperatures are in good agreement with the measured data having a root mean square error of 4.69 and 3.7, respectively.