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Design Team (left to right): Jesse Siemen, Gail Bornhorst, Matthew Stasiewicz
Rapid Post Harvest Cherry Cooling: Cherry Bay Orchards harvests 2000 acres of cherries each year, which can be as warm as 90-100°F at peak heat during harvest and must be cooled before processing for efficient pitting. The current cooling processes use large volumes of chilled, non-recirculated water and flow rates are so low that certain spots in the cherry tanks are cooled very slowly, if at all. To reduce water and energy loss and eliminate dead zones a cooling system was designed to lower into truckloads of cherry tanks and use high flow rate well water to rapidly and uniformly cool the contents.
Pipe configurations and water flow rates for the new system were analyzed using computational fluid dynamics techniques to predict the water temperature throughout the cherry tank. Then, these temperature profiles were used to drive predictions of finite element heat transfer from cherries inside the tank to calculate the expected cooling. The recommended 5-prong spider is expected to uniformly cool the entire tank of cherries to within 2°C (3.6°F) of the well water temperature while potentially saving Cherry Bay Orchards money and water resources by allowing recirculation of chilled water later in the cooling process.
Industry Advisors: Mr. Don Gregory,
Cherry Bay Orchards, Suttons Bay, MI.
Brian Hardeman, Petra SIM Model,
Thunderhead Engineering, Manhattan, KS.Industry Advisors: Mr. Don Gregory,
Cherry Bay Orchards, Suttons Bay, MI.
Brian Hardeman, Petra SIM Model,
Thunderhead Engineering, Manhattan, KSThis article was written for publication in the Senior Design Showcase Program, April 17, 2007. Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Newsletter, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
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