Predicting Sensible and Latent Heat Generation with CFD in Animal Housing for Dairy Cattle

Fernando Rojano , Pierre-Emmanuel Bournet (1) , Mélynda Hassouna (2) , Paul Robin , Murat Kacira , Choi C.

1 EPHOR - Unité de Recherche Environnement Physique de la plante Horticole
2 SAS - Sol Agro et hydrosystème Spatialisation

The operation of animal housing requires a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between the animal and its surroundings. Apart from good nutrition and management, comfortable living conditions, in particular, climate can also enhance animal productivity. The climate conditions become one of the main problems to solve once there are prevalent high temperatures affecting the performance of the cow. Climate in a livestock building can successfully be studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), since it can evaluate several scenarios that include the animal thermodynamics behavior. The main cooling mechanisms aiding the release of heat from animals are convection, radiation, conduction and evaporation, all induced by equipment such as fans, sprinklers and fogs, in conjunction with thermal boundary conditions of the building. In this prospect a single animal model is evaluated assuming a constant core body temperature and the hair coat as boundary layer that determines the heat and mass transfer rates. The model is capable of computing the cooling contributed by radiative, convective and evaporative modes. The results are then compared with experimental results from previous studies. Through this setup, the study focuses on climate conditions typical of the desert, which often cause heat stress in the animal. The study begins with an analysis of a standing animal in order to quantify the amount of heat and mass that is transferred to its surroundings. The study then considers the animal in a resting position and evaluates the influence of conduction as an additional heat transfer mode. Both analyses illustrate the importance of each cooling contribution for an average cow exposed to annual variation of a typical desert climate. The results can aid in the optimized operation of each cooling technique so as to provide the climate that will be the best based on the characteristics of the animals, the building, and the weather conditions.

Mots clés: cow modeling; heat and mass transfer; climate modeling; livestock building

Domaines: Horticulture

Fernando Rojano, Pierre-Emmanuel Bournet, Mélynda Hassouna, Paul Robin, Murat Kacira, et al.. Predicting Sensible and Latent Heat Generation with CFD in Animal Housing for Dairy Cattle. International Conference for Agricultural Engineering, Jul 2014, Zurich, Allemagne, Albania. ⟨hal-01541900⟩