Cold room calculation
Air cooler units can be found in most cooling and freezing rooms. Air cooler capacities should perfectly match with the specific conditions of each individual cold room. For that reason most air cooler manufacturers supply software to select the best air cooler model for the application. However, prior to air cooler selection a calculation must be made to determine the expected heat load for the cold room.
Rules of thumb or accuracy?
For making cold room calculations refrigeration installers can rely on experience based and widely used ‘rules of thumb’ : 15-20 watt/m3 for a large frozen storage room, 60-70 watt/m3 for a fresh fruit cooling room, etc. Convenient, quick, but not very accurate.
A more accurate method is a detailed cold room calculation using refined calculation formulas in combination with product data tables. This can be done manually or using commercial cold room calculation software. This is relatively time consuming, a computer is required and in addition the software is not for free. And if for instance the room door remains open a little longer than planned, so much for calculation accuracy…
Quick & easy
To offer the market an convenient intermediate solution, a quick & easy cold room calculation module has been added to the selection software for Alfa Laval Helpman heat exchangers some years ago. This non-academic software enabled customers to make quick and reliable ‘stand alone’ calculations for a cold/freezing rooms. This approach turned out to be a hit and many consultants and refrigeration installers have been using this ‘easy access’ calculation method since.
Mobile App – for free!
With mobile technology rapidly developing, Alfa Laval decided to ‘translate’ the existing cold room calculation software into a mobile App for smartphones and tablets. This App is now available for free in both Apple & Google app stores. The new Alfa Laval Cold Room Calculator turned out to be a very easy-to-use tool, with it’s functionality fully based on the previous computer software. The App quickly calculates a reliable cooling capacity for any cold or freezing room.
Specs
App name : Alfa Laval Cold Room Calculator
Platform : iOS & Android
Languages : Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish