In multi-tier systems for broiler chickens, maintaining a suitable climate at animal level is essential. Air velocity and temperature are particularly important because large spatial variations can adversely affect animal comfort.
A single-tier test facility was built for the experimental study. Numerous velocity measurements were used to map the airflow distribution at animal level. In parallel, FlowMotion performed CFD simulations to investigate how geometric modifications affected the local velocity distribution.
The calculations showed that the flow field was strongly influenced by factors including the system geometry, the size of the animals and the applied boundary conditions. CFD made it possible to study the influence of these parameters both individually and in combination.
The resulting insight was used to develop new geometric concepts that could also be applied to multi-tier systems. In a subsequent development phase, these configurations were again analysed with CFD to achieve an airflow distribution and indoor climate that were as uniform as possible at animal level.
