Phase change material enabled temperature zones for food delivery totes (a numerical and experimental study)

People

Supervisory Chair

Description

Collaborating with Woolworths, we are interested to find out how improved energy efficiency in food delivery can bring cost benefits to Australian retailers and grocery stores. The way we buy daily grocery has been entirely changed by COVID and many of us still keep the online shopping habit with Click&Collect. The Collection Sites of Woolworths are packed with food totes where your purchased stuff are temporarily stored. One consumer’s goods is usually put in one tote for convenience, however you may get a bottle of fresh milk that needs to be refrigerated at 0-4°C and a tub of ice cream that needs to be kept at -18°C. This make it important to have different temperature zones in a single tote and phase change materials (PCMs) are great options for that. In this project, we will find out the best arrangement of PCMs in totes using CFD modelling.