Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141

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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag

A method of coupling CFD and energy balance simulations to study

humidity control in unheated greenhouses
D. Piscia, P. Muñoz, C. Panadès, J.I. Montero ⇑
Department of Environmental Horticulture, IRTA, Carretera de Cabrils km 2, 08348 Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A coupling method is presented to study the night-time climate in greenhouses. The approach is based on
Received 2 September 2014 two simulation methods: energy balance simulations (ES) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The
Received in revised form 7 May 2015 coupled approach takes advantage of the strengths of each method and reduces their weaknesses. Two
Accepted 8 May 2015
CFD parametric studies were carried out. The first one analysed the effects of different wind speeds
and ventilator opening degrees on the ventilation rate. The second study assessed the effects of different
sky temperatures and ventilator opening degrees on convective heat transfer coefficients. The CFD
Keywords:
method was then coupled with the ES through the exchange of two variables: the CFD simulations
Computational fluid dynamics
Energy balance models
provided the ventilation rates for the ES and the CFD method supplied the convective heat transfer coef-
Unheated greenhouses ficients used by for the ES. This coupling approach was applied to the study of night-time ventilation in an
Simulation unheated, polyethylene-covered greenhouse where two important scenarios were addressed: clear-sky
conditions and an overcast sky. Results from the two studies indicate that ventilation during the
night-time in winter improves greenhouse climate; in the clear-sky case, relative humidity was reduced
and the temperature was raised since ventilation reduced or eliminated thermal inversion, whereas in
the covered-sky situation, ventilating reduced the humidity content, but the temperature dropped. As
expected, the increases and drops in temperature and humidity also depended on external conditions.
Minor opening angles produced the greatest changes in terms of greenhouse air temperature and relative
humidity.
Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction conditions. The enormous variety of boundary conditions and

Greenhouse climate provides a favourable environment for crop
development, so controlling it is crucial for good plant growth.
However, this is not a simple matter because several physical
phenomena take place (transpiration, condensation, ventilation,
leakage, etc.). In order to improve climate conditions and prevent
the emergence of crop diseases, it is necessary to reduce the effects
of low temperatures, high humidity and condensation inside the
greenhouse (Bakker, 1991; Baptista et al., 2012). To avoid these
problems, so-called active (or heated) greenhouses are equipped
with several devices, such as heating, dehumidification and cooling
systems. Meanwhile, in the family of passive (or unheated) green-
houses, the climate is essentially controlled by means of natural
ventilation (Baeza et al., 2009), which offers little control and
results in a strong dependence on outside conditions.
Greenhouse performance therefore has to be calculated based on
all seasonal conditions while considering changes in external
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 93 7507511; fax: +34 93 7533954.
E-mail address: juanignacio.montero@irta.cat (J.I. Montero).
design elements makes greenhouse design a complex task
(Vanthoor, 2011).
Broadly speaking, greenhouse climate has mainly been simu-
lated by means of energy balance simulations (ES) and computa-
tional fluid dynamics (CFD), as described in Kindelan (1980) and
Boulard et al. (2002), respectively. Zhai and Chen (2005) sum-
marised the advantages and drawbacks of these two techniques.
On the one hand, energy balance models, also known in the green-
house literature as examples of the stirred tank approach (Roy
et al., 2002), are based on the assumption of the uniformity/homo-
geneity of greenhouse variables such as temperature and humidity.
This assumption makes the implementation of ES computationally
fast and straightforward, but with some major limitations, such as
the need to have prior information on the empirical expressions for
convective heat fluxes and wind pressure coefficients (Zhang et al.,
2013). Furthermore, ES cannot be easily used to describe the effects
of air movements caused by thermal differences or wind. On the
other hand, CFD provides detailed flow patterns and is able to com-
pute heat transfer fluxes accurately, but is unfortunately much
costlier in terms of computational resources, thus making CFD

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2015.05.005
0168-1699/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
130 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
impracticable for exhaustively simulating a fluid dynamics prob-
lem over a long time period. In addition, fluid equations are stiff
because of the conjugate coupling between wall and air, which
therefore increases the computational cost of solving the problem.
All of these greenhouse climate characteristics make it difficult
to perform complete greenhouse modelling. Aspects such as
long-time integration can only be tackled using ES, whereas others,
such as flow dynamics, can be appropriately described using CFD.
In this context, coupling CFD with ES could be advantageous: ES
can make use of the air movement patterns and convective coeffi-
cients provided by CFD, while ES can provide CFD with the initial
values of factors such as the inside temperature and cover
temperature.
Several studies have addressed the coupling of ES and CFD tech-
niques in building simulations. Zhang et al. (2013) reported on the
existence of three different types of coupling. The first one is fully
internal coupling, where the set of equations for energy balance
and CFD are solved together iteratively. In Negrao (1995), it was
shown that such internal coupling generates an excessive number
of equations for different models (such as ES zones, CFD equations
and plant systems). The second approach is iterative external cou-
pling, where the equations of ES and CFD are solved in a segregated
manner: the variables are exchanged by using an iterative proce-
dure until a converged state is achieved. The last type is
progressive-replacement external coupling, where the set of vari-
ables is exchanged after each model reaches a converged state after
each time step. Besides these coupling types, Zhai and Chen (2005)
also described three types of discontinuities between ES and CFD
programmes. The first one is a time-scale discontinuity: ES for heat
transfer in the building enclosure have a characteristic time scale
of hours, but CFD uses time steps of seconds for room air. The sec-
ond is a modelling discontinuity. The indoor values predicted for
each element in ES are spatially averaged, whereas CFD simula-
tions present field distributions of variables. Finally, the speed dis-
continuity is related to the computational time needed to solve the
model. ES take only a few seconds to perform annual energy anal-
ysis and require little computer memory, whereas a CFD calcula-
tion for a specific zone may take hours and require considerable
memory. Depending on the type of coupling used, some or all of
these discontinuities may have to be solved.
All the studies on ES-CFD coupling mentioned focus on the
energy climate of buildings. Most features of building climate sim-
ulations can also be found in greenhouse climate analysis. In fact,
the governing equations are the same. However, despite the con-
siderable similarities between building and greenhouse climate
modelling, they are different in some ways. One of the most rele-
vant differences is occupancy: in a greenhouse, the occupants are
crops; in a building, they are human beings. The inertia loads are
also not the same: the typical building envelop presents much
higher inertia than the greenhouse cover. Another distinction that
has a major impact on the coupling strategy is the fact that green-
house climate is strongly linked to exterior conditions because the
covering material is semitransparent (plastic or glass) and there-
fore participates in radiation. That is why most coupling
approaches used for buildings are not completely valid for
greenhouses, such as carrying out separate studies of the indoor
and outdoor climates.
Because of the intimate relationship between indoor and out-
door climate in a greenhouse, the ES-CFD coupling used in this
study was a static bin coupling, as described by Zhai and Chen
(2005): the bin coupling process is designed to reduce the comput-
ing cost. It provides ES the information that is precomputed by CFD
and saved in the bins for continuous energy calculation. CFD sim-
ulated both indoor and outdoor climate and passed information to
the ES for correct computation of the ventilation rate and convec-
tive heat transfer because it lacked information on these
parameters. As reported by Roy et al. (2002), the ventilation rate
of a greenhouse ES model can be computed using Bernoulli equa-
tions and values from semi-empirical formulas. The parameters
of these semi-empirical equations were derived either from direct
determination of the discharge coefficients or through in situ deter-
mination by doing a regression of an overall coefficient of wind
efficiency on ventilation to measure the air exchange rate. In the
present work, the greenhouse under study was an innovative
structure and no ventilation experiments or specific empirical for-
mula were known. In order to overcome this problem, a parametric
study relating the ventilation rate to the air speed and ventilator
opening angle was performed using CFD simulations. Similarly,
convective heat transfer is governed by a combination of forced
convection due to wind pressure and free convection caused by
buoyancy forces from temperature gradients between the air and
different surfaces (walls, cover, soil, plants, etc.). Consequently,
convective coefficients depend on the greenhouse type, outside cli-
mate and ventilation conditions. This dependence on several fac-
tors makes it difficult to choose convective coefficients. For this
reason, as in the case of ventilation parameters, a parametric study
of the greenhouse was carried out by means of CFD simulations
and these parameters were then included in the ES.
The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, it presents and uses
a method to couple CFD with ES for greenhouse climate modelling:
CFD simulations were used to obtain ventilation rate formulas and
convective coefficients, which were then included in the energy
balance mode. Secondly, ES were run to study the effect of ventila-
tion on night-time greenhouse climate in terms of humidity, tem-
perature and condensation. The purpose was to address a
well-known issue: the excess humidity in the night-time in winter
in unheated greenhouses, given the possibility of thermal inver-
sions between the interior and exterior temperatures (Montero
et al., 2004, 2013). Several ES parametric analysis have been per-
formed to assess the effects on the inside temperature and relative
humidity of different ventilator opening degrees for different out-
side humidity contents.
2. Materials and methods
In our ventilated greenhouse, two procedures coupled CFD and
ES: CFD provided the ES with information on ventilation rates and
convective heat transfer coefficients. ES was then used to define
strategies for humidity control based on the management of
night-time ventilation. Coupling can be summarised in the follow-
ing steps:
1. A CFD parametric study of the ventilation rate in which only the
momentum equation was considered, so the heat equation and
the mass equation for the water vapour were not included. This
study consisted of 24 different combinations of ventilator open-
ing degrees (5°, 10°, 15°, 30°, 60° and 90°) and wind speeds (1,
2, 3 and 4 m s1).
2. A CFD parametric study of convective heat transfer in which the
heat equation and the species equation for air and water vapour
were solved. This consisted of 6 CFD simulations for different
vent opening angles (0°, 5° and 90°) and sky temperatures
(256 and 273 K).
3. Introduction of the CFD results into the ES in the form of empir-
ical expressions for the ventilation rate and calculated convec-
tive coefficients.
After the coupling was performed, ES were used to carry out an
extensive parametric study of two scenarios (the unheated green-
house under clear and overcast skies) because of the low computa-
tional cost of this technique.
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
2.1. The CFD model
2.1.1. Numerical method
The Numerical Method was the one previously published by the
same authors. Below we replicate the explanation given by Piscia
et al. (2013) of such method.
The CFD simulations solved the governing equations of the fluid
flows in the greenhouse. The momentum equation, also known as
the Navier–Stokes equation, was derived from the application of
Newton’s Second Law applied to a fluid element:
! the case. The 3D mesh was unstructured and there were a total
@q U ! ! !
þ U rq U ¼ rp þ lr2 U þSU ;
@x
! tion, chosen in accordance with the criteria of Bournet et al. (2007).
where q is the fluid density, t the time, U the velocity vector, whose
x-component is u, p the pressure, l the turbulent dynamic viscosity
and SU the momentum source.
In this situation, the assumption of incompressibility applies
and the mass conservation or continuity equation has to be solved:
! defined as a non-slip wall (the sky) and the bottom domain as
qðr U Þ ¼ Sq ;
where Sq is the mass source, i.e. crop transpiration in the case of our
greenhouse.
The study also involved energy, so the CFD model also had to
include the heat equation:
@ qC p T !
þ U rðqcp TÞ ¼ kr2 T þ ST ;
@t
where T is the temperature, k the thermal conductivity, ST the heat
source and cp the heat capacity at constant pressure.
Turbulence was modelled using the standard k–e model
(Launder and Spalding, 1972). This method is based on the solution
of two equations: one for k, which accounts for turbulent kinetic
energy, and the other for et, where the rate of dissipation of energy
in unit volume and time is considered. This is probably the most
used and validated turbulence model, and in the greenhouse CFD
literature it has been used in many research studies (Boulard and
Wang, 2000).
The contribution of radiation was added as a source component
(ST) in Eq. (3). The Discrete Ordinate Model (DOM) was used to cal-
culate the radiation component because plastic is a participating
medium and DOM is recommended for semitransparent materials
(Verstaag and Malalasekera, 1995; Baxevanou et al., 2008). Details
of the DOM can be found in Piscia (2012) and Piscia et al. (2012).
In order to link the fluid density with the other variables, an
additional equation was necessary, which in our case was the ideal
gas law. In terms of species transport equations and conservation
equations for air and water vapour, the local mass fraction is pre-
dicted through the solution of a convection–diffusion equation for
each species (Ansys, 2012).
The lettuce (Lactuca sativa) crop inside the greenhouse was con-
sidered to be homogeneous and a constant water vapour source at
night with a production rate of 1.74  106 kg m2 s1 (Piscia et al.,
2012). Condensation was also accounted for in the CFD simulations
by means of a user-defined function (UDF). The condensation
model applied in this study was developed by Bell (2003). This
model was implemented as UDF into the general CFD simulation
code. In Bell’s model the condensation rate is governed by the rate
of diffusion of water vapour towards the cold surface. The conden-
sation rate was included in Eqs. (2) and (3) as part of the corre-
sponding source term in each case. Further details can be found
in Piscia (2012) and Piscia et al. (2012).
The convective terms in the CFD equations were modelled using
a second-order up-wind scheme, while the viscous term used a
second-order central scheme and the transient term used an impli-
cit scheme. Pressure–velocity coupling was resolved by the
131
SIMPLEC method (Van Doormaal and Raithby, 1984), which uses
a relationship between velocity and pressure corrections to enforce
mass conservation and obtain the pressure field. Ansys Fluent 13.0
CFD software (Ansys, 2012) was used.
2.1.2. Mesh and boundary conditions
The CFD model was very similar to the ones in Piscia et al.
(2012, 2013), but presented a change in the geometry because of
the greenhouse ventilator (Fig. 1). The angle of the greenhouse
ventilator was therefore a parameter that changed depending on
of 443,000 mesh cells. The dimensions of the domain were 160 m
ð1Þ
in the x-direction, 50 m in the y-direction, and 12 m in the z-direc-
The quality of the grid was checked by applying the skewness aver-
age, which accounts for all the cells. The result was 0.11.
The CFD used the enhanced wall treatments, which extended
the validity of the near-wall modelling beyond the viscous sub-
layer (Ansys, 2012). In the 3D model, the top domain surface was
ð2Þ
another non-slip wall that corresponded to the ground. The air flo-
wed in from the left surface (y–z plane) and flowed out of the
domain through the right. Symmetry was imposed in the domain
surfaces (x–y plane) parallel to the wind direction. In addition,
since our intention was the representation of an infinitely-long
greenhouse, the front walls were not modelled. The 3D mesh
ð3Þ was generated using Ansys mesh software.
The greenhouse roof and walls were meshed as 0.2-mm thick
elements. These surfaces were considered to be semi-transparent
solids and their optical properties for far infrared radiation were
as follows: absorptivity 0.69, transmissivity 0.19, and reflectivity
0.12. These values were assumed to be independent of the wave-
length. Furthermore, the soil was modelled as a grey media with
emissivity 0.98 for black mulching, following Liakatas et al.
(1986). The heat transfer from the soil surface to the greenhouse
was the soil heat flux (SHF), which was set as a boundary
condition.
2.1.3. CFD model used for the ventilation rate parametric study
The CFD ventilation rate parametric study simulated 24 differ-
ent situations in which only the momentum equation, Eq. (1),
was activated. Since the objective of this parametric study was to
compute the equilibrium ventilation rate, the simulations were
run with constant parameters to obtain a final steady state (see
Table 1). Note that the ventilation studied was windward.
2.1.4. CFD model used for the convective heat transfer parametric
study
In addition to the momentum equation, this set of CFD simula-
tions also took into account the energy equation, Eq. (3), as well as
the water vapour balance equation, which includes crop transpira-
tion and condensation. This parametric study was based on 6 CFD
simulations, where the CFD model simulated two extreme ventila-
tor opening degrees (5° and 90°). The aim was to obtain the con-
vective coefficients for these two cases and to use a linear
interpolation to extract the coefficients between these two points.
For each situation, two different sky temperatures were simulated
to test the effect of different sky values on convective heat coeffi-
cient values. Finally, the same approach was applied to a closed
greenhouse for the sake of comparison because, when a green-
house is closed, the coefficients are driven by buoyancy, whereas
when the greenhouse is open, convection can be modified by the
wind. As shown in Table 2, only one wind speed, uW = 2 m s1,
and one SHF were considered because of the computational cost
limitation. The convective coefficients and their relations were
only used in the ES under these conditions.
132 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141

Fig. 1. Three-dimensional view of greenhouse geometry with parametric roof ventilator opening.

Table 1 The energy balance model used in this study is described in

Boundary conditions for the ventilation rate parametric study. Piscia et al. (2013). The ES model established the energy balance
of the cover, side walls, soil surface as well as the energy and mass
Boundary conditions Type
balance of the greenhouse air. No separate energy balance was
Top domain surface Non-slip wall
made for the windward and leeward sidewalls. The thermal inertia
Bottom domain surface Non-slip wall
Left domain surface Inlet velocity 1, 2, 3, 4 m s1 at a height of 2 m of greenhouse elements was not considered. However, the equa-
(logarithmic profile) (Richards and Hoxey, 1993) tions proposed there did not account for ventilation.
Right domain surface Outlet boundary conditions Consequently, the relevant equations A.18 and A.19 in Appendix
Parallel domain surface Symmetry A in Piscia et al. (2013) had to be modified. The energy balance
Ventilator opening degrees 5°, 10°, 15°, 30°, 60°, 90°
of greenhouse air had to include the ventilation term:

V qðcp þ wair cp;x ÞdT air

Table 2
Boundary conditions for the convective heat transfer parametric study.
Boundary conditions
Top domain surface
Bottom domain surface
Left domain surface
Right domain surface
Parallel domain surface
Ventilator opening degrees
Initial conditions
Exterior air temperature
Relative humidity of exterior air
Inside air temperature
Relative humidity of inside air
Side wall temperature
Cover temperature
¼ As qc;s þ Asxi qc;sxi þ Aci qci
dt
þ Uðcp T air þ cp;w wair T air þ he wair
 cp T e  cp;w we T e  he we Þ; ð4Þ
Type
Sky temperature 256 K, 273 K where the subscripts air and e refer to the greenhouse air and exte-
Greenhouse soil heat flux 25 W m2 rior air, w represents the humidity ratio, cpw the heat capacity at
Inlet temperature 276 K and velocity constant pressure for water vapour, U the ventilation rate, V the
2 m s1 at a height of 2 m (logarithmic
volume of air inside the greenhouse and he the enthalpy of conden-
profile) (Richards and Hoxey, 1993)
Outlet boundary conditions sation. Additionally, subscripts c, s, swi, and ci stand for convective,
Symmetry soil, sidewall interior and cover interior, while A and q represent
0°, 5°, 90° areas and heat fluxes. The convective coefficient listed in Table 3
Values ° were used in the calculation of the heat fluxes by convection q.
276 K
80%
Likewise, the mass balance of greenhouse air can be expressed as:
280 K
68% dM W
¼ Ccrop  Xcov þ Uðwair  we Þ ð5Þ
280 K dt
280 K
where Mw is the mass of water vapour, C the transpiration rate and
X the condensation rate on the greenhouse cover.

2.2. Energy balance simulations

ES are based on the resolution of energy and mass conservation
in a large volume. In the greenhouse literature, energy balance
models are also referred to as perfectly stirred tank models. This
approach requires uniform temperature, humidity and CO2 content
inside the greenhouse and uses a ‘‘big leaf’’ model to treat the plant
canopy and describe the exchanges of latent and sensible heat with
the inside air (Roy et al., 2002).
3. Results
3.1. CFD ventilation rate parametric study
The CFD greenhouse model described in Section 2.1.3 studied
six different vent opening degree configurations (5°, 10°, 15°, 30°,
60°, 90°) and four different wind speeds (1, 2, 3, 4 m s1), resulting
in a total of 24 scenarios. Ventilation rate was deduced by

Table 3
Convective coefficients for different sky temperatures and roof ventilator opening angles.

a (W m2 K1) (Tsky, K)

(273,90) (256,90) (273,5) (256,5) (273, 0) (256,0)
Interior cover 5.2 5.2 3.4 3.5 2.2 2.3
Exterior cover 3.9 3.9 3.8 3.7 9.4 9.3
Interior sidewall 8.9 8.7 5.1 5.1 1.6 1.8
Exterior sidewall 4.0 4.1 6.8 6.7 6.0 5.9
Soil in greenhouse 12.4 12.2 7.4 7.0 3.1 3.1
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
integrating the velocity field over the vent openings. The relevant
results are shown in Fig. 2.
The ventilation rate seemed to increase linearly with the sine of
the ventilator opening angle for the four wind speeds. The same
linearity reported by Jong (1990) between the ventilation rate,
the sine of the angle and the velocity was observed in our
greenhouse.
The simplest mathematical way to express the data is as
follows:
U ¼ a uw þ b sin K;
2 2
where a = (30.3 ± 8.4) 10 kg m and b = (23.7 ± 3.9) 101
kg m1 s1 were obtained using a least-squares method fit.
However, there was a major error between this fit and the original
data: a maximum relative error of e  240% and an average relative
error e  67%. A potential reason was that the simplest equation
was not the most general one to express the linear relationship
between the ventilation rate, wind velocity and the sine of the ven-
tilator opening. The most general equation is, in fact, the following:
U ¼ a uw þ b sin K þ cuw sin K;
Furthermore, for the sake of consistency with our CFD simula-
tions, the ventilation rate had to be zero if the greenhouse was
closed (K = 0°), regardless of wind velocity. Therefore, a had to be
equal to zero and the data had to be fit in this equation:
U ¼ b sin K þ cuw sin K;
Note that when uw or sin K was constant, the ventilation rate
was linear to the other magnitude. Additionally, Eq. (8) introduced
a crossed term that could be useful to account for mild nonlinear-
ities. These coefficients were computed using the least-squares
method once again, thus yielding b = (0.4 ± 12.5) 102 kg m1 s2
and c = (136.1 ± 4.6) 102 kg m2. In fact, using Eq. (8) provided a
better fit for the data, thus indicating the need to include the
crossed term cuw sin K. In this scenario, the maximum relative
error was e  29% and the average relative error was e  13%.
The only problem with this fit was the large error in coefficient
b, probably induced by the fact that for a two-variable fit, 24 points
is a rather small set of data.
Another way to estimate these coefficients but with smaller
errors was as follows. When the wind velocity was constant
(Fig. 2), Eq. (8) could be rewritten:
U ¼ ðb þ cuw Þ sin K  m sin K;
As a consequence, by performing linear regressions that went
through the origin on the plots of Fig. 2, four m values were
obtained. An additional regression between m and uw had to be
performed to determine the other coefficients. In the worst case,
6
5 1 m/s
2 m/s
4 provided DT = 1.8 K, thus resulting in a = 1.9DT0.33. This expression
3 m/s
(kg s-1)
3 4 m/s
2
1 estimated via the Nusselt number, Nu, because a = kair Nu/L, where
0 kair = 0.025 W m1 K1 the thermal conductivity of air. In Roy
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
sin
Fig. 2. Ventilation rate as a function of the sine of the vent opening angle for
different values of wind speed. Straight lines are the result of fitting the data with
U = m sin K.
133
the correlation coefficient was r2 = 0.98. The coefficients were
b = (4.0 ± 8.7) 103 kg s1 m1 and c = (1361.0 ± 3.2) 103 kg m2,
whose errors were much smaller than the former ones. With Eq.
(9), the maximum relative error was e  22% and the average rela-
tive error was e  10%, which were lower than the previous
equations.
In all these methods, the error for low ventilation rates was
quite high. In order to achieve greater accuracy, a quadratic spline
was computed to capture the behaviour of the ventilation rate as a
function of wind speed and the sine of the vent opening angle.
ð6Þ
Details of the spline are given in the Appendix A. The spline pro-
vided the best fit for the data: maximum relative error was
e  11% and average relative error was e  3%. As a consequence,
this calculation reduced the error. It is also clear that when com-
pared with the other methods the spline produced the best esti-
mate. The spline equation was used by the ES model to compute
the ventilation rate. This represented the coupling between CFD
and ES, which, according to the coupling types defined in Zhang
et al. (2013), is a form of external, static coupling.
ð7Þ
3.2. Parametric study of CFD convective coefficients
The CFD greenhouse model, described in Section 2.1.4, studied
six different cases, a combination of two different equivalent sky
temperatures (273 K and 256 K) and three different ventilator
opening degrees (0°, 5° and 90°). These temperatures were chosen
ð8Þ
to study the phenomena occurring in unheated greenhouses (ther-
mal inversion and humidity) during cold and clear-sky nights
(256 K) and covered skies at an intermediate temperature
(273 K). For the sake of comparison, the two extreme cases of ven-
tilation (small and high vent opening angles) and the closed green-
house were analysed. The convective coefficients of the six
simulations are listed in Table 3.
The following conclusions can be drawn from Table 3 with
respect to the different convective coefficients.
3.2.1. Convective coefficient for the internal surface of the cover
The coefficient value was the highest for the fully open ventila-
tor (90°) and the lowest for the closed greenhouse. This trend
agrees with the fact that convection in the inner cover must
become more relevant when the roof is opened. For each ventilator
opening angle, two sky temperatures were used, but the results
show that the inner convective coefficients had little correlation
ð9Þ
with this parameter.
In addition, it is important to compare these values with the
ones presented in the greenhouse climate literature. Since the bib-
liography contains no descriptions of convective coefficients for
greenhouses with an open ventilator, the comparison was only
possible with the convective coefficients for closed greenhouses.
For comparison purposes, the inner cover CFD coefficients were
expressed as a = aDT0.33, where a is a constant and DT is the
difference in temperature between the cover and the air in the
greenhouse. For instance, for a = 2.3 W m2 K1, CFD simulations
is between the one given by De Halleux (1989), a = 1.86DT0.33, for a
large-scale greenhouse, and the one provided by Papadakis et al.
(1992), a = 2.21DT0.33, for a small polyethylene-covered green-
house. Additionally, these convective coefficients could be
L is the characteristic length of the process and
1
et al. (2002), it is suggested using the roof slope length for the
greenhouse cover, so we used L = 3.39 m. The Nusselt number
depends on the type of convection. For a closed greenhouse, con-
vection is driven solely by density gradients because of the absence
external forcing. This convection mode is called free convection
134 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
and, depending on the Grashof number, Gr, the flow is considered
laminar (Gr < 108) or turbulent (Gr > 108):
gbDTL3
Gr ¼ ; ð10Þ
v2
where b = 3.1  103 K1 and v = 1.4  105 m2 s1 are the volumetric
thermal expansion coefficient and kinematic viscosity at 10 °C,
respectively. Considering DT = 1.8 K and typical values of the
parameters for air, the Grashof number resulted in Gr = 1.2  1010,
thus being turbulent. In this scenario, the Nusselt number was com-
puted via the following expression:
1=3
Nu ¼ 0:14ðGrPr Þ ; ð11Þ
where Pr represented the Prandtl number. Considering Pr = 0.714,
yielded Nu = 288.7, which in turn provided a good estimate for
the convective coefficient, a = 2.1 W m2 K1.
When the greenhouse is open, convection became strongly
influenced by wind velocity, thus becoming a forced convection.
In this case, the Reynolds number, Re, determines whether the flow
is laminar (Re < 5  104) or turbulent (Re > 5  104):
UL
Re ¼ ; ð12Þ
v 1
where U represents the characteristic velocity inside the green-
house. Wang et al. (1999) estimated the interior air speed in a ven-
tilated greenhouse as the ratio between the mean ventilation flux
and the section perpendicular to the direction of this flux.
Following their reasoning and using the data from Section 3.1, it
was possible to estimate U. For instance, for 90° we obtained
U = 1.1 m s1, so Re = 2.7  105 and the flow from the forced convec-
tion was turbulent. Note that when the greenhouse is open, the roof
slope length increases for the internal surface of the cover. For 90°,
this length resulted in 4.39 m, which was considered as L. Following
Roy et al. (2002), the Nusselt number is:
Nu ¼ 0:036 Re4=5 Pr 1=3
which in our case resulted in Nu = 866.4, thus yielding
a = 4.9 W m2 K1, in good agreement with the value
a = 5.2 W m2 K1 from Table 3.
3.2.2. Convective coefficient for the external surface of the cover
In this case, the highest convective coefficient corresponded to
the closed greenhouse, which makes sense. In fact, it was more
than twice the amount in the ventilated situations. Once the ven-
tilator was opened, the difference between 5° and 90° was very
slight. The differences between the closed and ventilated green-
house arose due to the fact that, by opening the roof ventilators,
the greenhouse geometry changed and, as a result, the outside
air pattern also changed. The presence of ventilators made the
overall air speed decrease, along with the convective coefficient
of the external surface of the cover. This behaviour is difficult to
take into account using the semi-empirical formulas found in the
greenhouse research literature. As with the inner cover coeffi-
cients, sky temperature had an insignificant effect on the convec-
tive coefficients.
The convective coefficients of the CFD outer cover could be
compared to the values reported in other papers. For the closed
greenhouse, the CFD convective coefficient was approximately
9.4 W m2 K1 for a wind speed of 2 m s1. This value was between
8.27 W m2 K1, which was given by De Halleux (1989) for a
large-scale greenhouse, and 10.4 W m2 K1, which was provided
by Papadakis et al. (1992) for a polyethylene-covered greenhouse
with uw 6 6.3 m s1. In order to use the expression proposed in
De Halleux (1989), a characteristic length L had to be employed.
Roy et al. (2002) suggests using the roof slope length for the
greenhouse cover, so we used L = 3.39 m. As in Section 3.2.1, the
Nusselt number was useful to estimate greenhouse convective
coefficients. For the external surface of the cover, forced convection
was the driving mechanism because of the presence of wind,
whose velocity was considered as the characteristic velocity of
the process. The Reynolds number was Re = 4.8  105, so the flow
was clearly turbulent and Eq. (13) could be used. Therefore, the
Nusselt number was Nu = 1136.6, yielding a = 8.4 W m2 K1,
which was also in good agreement.
When the greenhouse was opened, the convection mode for the
external surface of the cover had to be the same. Of course, U and L
must be different, but the formulas from De Halleux (1989) and
Papadakis et al. (1992) should be valid. Let us assume L = 2.39 m,
because the roof slope length is halved due to opening the ventila-
tor. Then, these formulas provided a reasonable range for the char-
acteristic velocity, U = 0.17–0.71 m s1. Taking into account these
velocities, the Reynolds number range was Re = 2.9  104, to
Re = 1.2  105 corresponding to a laminar and a turbulent flow,
respectively. The following expression provides the Nusselt num-
ber in case the forced-convection flow is laminar:
Nu ¼ 0:67 Re1=2 Pr1=3 ð14Þ
For U = 0.17 m s , the flow was supposed to be laminar, yield-
ing Nu = 102.5, so a = 1.1 W m2 K1, which was a poor estimate of
the values from Table 3, a = 3.7–3.9 W m2 K1. Nevertheless, con-
sidering U = 0.71 m s1 (turbulent flow), resulted in Nu = 374.6 and
a = 3.9 W m2 K1. This value was in good agreement with Table 3
and supported the assumption that the flow was turbulent.
3.2.3. Convective coefficient for the internal surface of the sidewall
The lowest convective coefficient for the inner sidewall was the
one for the closed greenhouse. As expected, when the greenhouse
was closed, the air movement occurring inside the greenhouse by
convection was less than in the case of the ventilated greenhouse.
It was no surprise that when the ventilator was open, the coeffi-
ð13Þ
cient had to increase as the greenhouse became more ventilated.
As in the previous coefficients, the sky temperature had little effect
on the convective coefficients.
This case is similar to that of the coefficient of the internal sur-
face of the cover. Therefore, following the same reasoning,
a = 1.35DT0.33. In Tantau (1975), a = 1.247DT0.33 is reported for
the convective coefficient of a vertical wall and was quite close
to the value obtained in the CFD simulations.
For the internal surface of the sidewall, the span height was
considered as the characteristic length, L = 3.5 m. The resulting
Grashof number was Gr = 1.8  1010, so it was turbulent (Gr > 108).
Following the same procedure as in Section 3.2.1, the Nusselt num-
ber was Nu = 328.1 and a = 2.3 W m2 K1, which was close to
a = 1.8 W m2 K1 reported in Table 3.
By means of opening the greenhouse, the former free convec-
tion became forced. Following the same reasoning as for the inter-
nal surface of the cover, the same estimate for the characteristic
velocity was used, thus U = 1.1 m s1 for 90°. Considering the
same characteristic length, L = 3.5 m, a Reynolds number for a tur-
bulent flow was obtained, Re = 2.75  105. The resulting Nusselt
number was Nu = 722.8, so the convective coefficient was
a = 5.2 W m2 K1. This value was quite close to the values for 5°
and different but of the same order as the ones for 90°. Note that
the same characteristic length was considered for a closed and
open greenhouse, which is not necessarily true.
3.2.4. Convective coefficient for the external surface of the sidewall
As far as we have observed, this convective coefficient has the
most complex dynamics. The lowest convective coefficient was
found for the fully open ventilator (90°), whereas the highest
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
was for 5°. When the greenhouse was closed, the coefficient was
slightly lower than the value for 5°. This was curious in that exte-
rior convection on the sidewalls seemed to be slightly enhanced at
low ventilation angles. As with the former coefficients, the sky
temperature had little relationship with the convective coeffi-
cients. The CFD convective coefficients for the outer cover were
comparable to the values reported in other papers.
For the closed greenhouse, the CFD convective coefficient was
approximately 6 W m2 K1 for a wind speed of 2 m s1. This value
was of the same order as the value for a large-scale greenhouse
given by De Halleux (1989), 8.1 W m2 K1.
As it was done for the external surface of the cover, convection
was forced by the wind and the convective coefficient was esti-
mated using the Nusselt number. Taking L = 3.5 m, as the charac-
teristic length, the Reynolds number was Re = 5  105, thus being
a turbulent flow. In this case, Nu = 1166, so the convective coeffi-
cient was a = 8.3 W m2 K1, which is different from the values
reported in Table 3 but in the same level of agreement as the
semi-empirical formula in the former paragraph.
Following the same reasoning as in Section 3.2.2, when the
greenhouse was open, the convection mode for the external sur-
face of the sidewall had to be the same. The characteristic length
was considered the same as before, while the U was supposed to
be different because the flow was severely altered respect to the
closed case. Nevertheless, the formula given by De Halleux
(1989) should be valid and could be used to provide an estimate
of the characteristic velocity, U = 0.83 m s1 for the fully open ven-
tilator (a = 4 W m2 K1). The resulting Reynolds number was
Re = 2.1  105, corresponding to a turbulent flow. This value of Re
yielded Nu = 577.5 and a = 4.1 W m2 K1, which were consistent
with our assumptions.
3.2.5. Convective coefficient between inside air and soil surface
This coefficient followed the same trend as the convective coef-
ficients for the internal surface of the sidewall: indeed it was pos-
itively correlated to the quantity of air entering the greenhouse.
The convective coefficient for the fully ventilated greenhouse was
four times greater than the closed scenario. Once again, the sky
temperature did not substantially affect these convection
coefficients.
Considering that DT = 2.9 K, where DT was the difference
between the soil and inside temperature, the soil coefficient could
be expressed as a = 2.18DT0.33. This value was between the for-
mula a = 1.86DT0.33 given by De Halleux (1989) for a large-scale
greenhouse and a = 3.4DT0.33 reported in Stoffers (1985) for a
screened greenhouse. It was thus a reasonable agreement.
As with the previous coefficients, a could be estimated by
means of the Nusselt number, but an estimate for L is necessary.
Following Roy et al. (2002), it is suggested that the characteristic
length is of a few centimetres for a bare soil and a few metres
for a soil covered with plastic film. In our case, the soil was covered
with a black mulching, which is in between both scenarios, so we
took L = 0.1–1 m. Free convection occurred inside the greenhouse
when it was closed. Using Eq. (10), a range of Grashof numbers
was obtained, Gr = 5.1105–5.1  108, corresponding to a laminar
and a turbulent flow, respectively. The following expression pro-
vides the Nusselt number in case the free-convection flow is
laminar:
1=4
Nu ¼ 0:54 ðGr PrÞ
On the one hand, in case the flow was laminar (L = 0.1 m),
Nu = 13.3, so a = 3.3 W m2 K1, which was a good estimate of
the values from Table 3, a = 3.1 W m2 K1. On the other hand,
considering the flow turbulent, Nu = 99.8 and a = 2.5 W m2 K1,
which was also in good agreement.
135
When the greenhouse was open, the convection mode changed
from free to forced. As in Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.3, the same charac-
teristic velocity inside the greenhouse for 90° was considered,
U = 1.1 m s1, so, Re = 7.9  103–7.9  104 depending on L. The flow
was laminar for L = 0.1 m, so Eq. (14) yields Nu = 53.1, while con-
sidering L = 1 m implied the utilisation of Eq. (13) because the flow
was turbulent, Nu = 265.3. In the end, we obtained
a = 13.3 W m2 K1 in the laminar case, and a = 6.63 W m2 K1
in the turbulent flow. This was a clear indication that the flow close
to the soil was laminar.
3.2.6. Coupling between CFD and ES
As discussed throughout this section, the convective coefficients
changed due to the ventilation opening angle. The values shown in
Table 3 could be included in the ES model, but there was no esti-
mation for the convective coefficients when the ventilator opening
degrees were between 5° and 90°. Performing additional CFD sim-
ulations for the whole range of angles seemed appropriate but too
costly in terms of computational resources. In addition, there was
the possibility that the results were not that sensitive with the con-
vective coefficients because of the strong influence of the external
meteorological conditions. This means that in principle for high
ventilation rates, the climate inside the greenhouse would be the
same as the external one, no matter which convective coefficients
were considered. Meanwhile, for small ventilator opening degrees,
the dynamics inside the greenhouse should not be entirely driven
by the external conditions and the values of the convective coeffi-
cients might still be relevant.
Therefore, we considered K = 5°, and studied how changing the
values of the convective coefficients influenced the temperature
and relative humidity of the air inside the greenhouse for the
two scenarios: cold (Tsky = 256 K) and intermediate (Tsky = 273 K).
The remaining parameters are compatible with the ones used for
the CFD simulations (Table 2). The initial temperatures of inside
air, sidewall, soil and cover were the same,
Tair = Tsw = Ts = Tc = 280 K, while the exterior temperature was
Te = 276 K. The internal and external values of relative humidity
were RHair = 68% and RHe = 80%, respectively. Wind velocity was
2 m s1 and the soil heat flux was 25 W m2 K.
In each case, an energy balance simulation was run for K = 5°
and the corresponding values of the convective coefficients from
Table 3, and the results of these simulations were stored.
Afterwards, a convective coefficient was changed to an intermedi-
ate value between 5° and 90°. For instance, for the internal part of
the cover, a changes from 3.5 to 4.35 W m2 K1. This procedure
was repeated for each a and the results were compared with the
default value (Table 4). It is clear that interior climate conditions
did not change substantially, except for the relative humidity in
the cold case, where it increased about DRHair = 1.8%. However, this
error was acceptable according to Baptista (2007) because it was of
the same order associated with ES. Consequently, the exact values
of the convective coefficients were not that relevant, and an esti-
mate of them could provide reasonable results without the neces-
sity of running extensive CFD simulations. Therefore, a linear
Table 4
Sensitivity of the Tair and RHair under changes in the convective coefficients for K = 5°.
a (W m2 K1) cold/ Cold (Tsky = 256 K) Intermediate
intermediate (Tsky = 273 K)
ð15Þ
DTair (K) DRHair (%) DTair (K) DRHair (%)
aci: 3.5/4.35 2.0  101 +1.8 4.6  102 +2.8  101
ace: 3.7/3.8 +1.7  102 +1.8  101 +5.5  105 6.9  104
aswi: 5.1/6.9 3.8  102 +1.5  101 +5.5  105 6.9  104
aswe: 6.7/5.4 6.3  102 +1.6  102 +2.2  103 1.4  102
as: 7.0/9.6 +2.7  102 1.8  101 +9.9  102 6.0  101
136 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
interpolation as a function of vent opening was implemented
between 5° and 90°. Of course, when the ventilators were closed,
the coefficients were taken as the CFD values obtained for 0°.
This action represented the second coupling link between the
CFD and ES models because it evidenced that it was not necessary
to run further CFD simulations and provided good estimates of the
convective coefficients for the ES.
3.3. ES parametric study
In a greenhouse, it is important to protect crops from low tem-
peratures and high humidity. In unheated (passive) greenhouses,
the climate is essentially controlled by ventilation. Our aim was
to propose ventilation strategies based on ES parametric analysis
in two different scenarios:
 Section 3.3.1: A cold case, where the inside temperature was
colder than the outside (unheated greenhouse and clear-sky
conditions).
 Section 3.3.2: An intermediate case, where the inside tempera-
ture was warmer than the outside, but the relative humidity
was high (unheated greenhouse and overcast-sky conditions).
The first scenario was chosen because a previous study (Piscia
et al., 2012) showed that thermal inversion occurred in an
unheated greenhouse (SHF 25 W m2) under clear-sky conditions
(256 K). This is because the greenhouse cover emits more infrared
radiation than it receives from the sky. During a clear winter night,
the equivalent sky temperature can be 20 °C lower than the air
temperature and the cover can consequently be up to 3 °C cooler
than the outside air. The second scenario was proposed because
Piscia et al. (2012) reported that in this situation thermal inversion
is prevented but the humidity can be higher than the maximum
tolerable threshold (85%, as suggested by Campen, 2009). Of
course, both are major problems for crop production. To provide
realistic results, the ES model used the ventilation rate and convec-
tive coefficients found in the CFD simulations presented in Sections
3.1 and 3.2.
3.3.1. Cold case: equivalent sky temperature of 256 K and soil heat flux
of 25 W m2
As explained above, this scenario can occur on cold, clear-sky
nights in unheated greenhouses. In this situation, the inside
Fig. 3. Inside temperature for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 256 K and a
soil heat flux 25 W m2.
temperature is lower than the outside temperature and the relative
humidity is higher than the recommended maximum. The effects
of different ventilator openings on the inside climate depended
on outside climate conditions, which is why the parametric study
simulated a combination of different ventilator opening degrees
and different external humidity ratios. A set of 225 ES was run with
different external conditions (0.001 6 w 6 0.004) and ventilator
openings (0° 6 K 6 90°). The results were plotted as
three-dimensional graphics in order to assess the effects of
ventilation for different external humidity ratios. For the sake of
comparison, the closed greenhouse scenario was included in these
plots (K = 0°).
Considering an exterior temperature of 276 K, it is clear from
Fig. 3 that opening the ventilators prevented thermal inversions
from occurring. The greatest effects in terms of temperature gain
were obtained in the first opening degrees. After 10–15°, the
effects on the inside temperature were greatly reduced and, after
approximately 30°, the derivative of the temperature in terms of
the opening was close to zero. In fact, as the opening angle
increased, thermal inversion was less likely to occur because the
internal and external temperatures tended to balance each other
out. As expected, the inside temperature did not vary as a result
of the external humidity ratio.
Likewise, Fig. 4 shows that the relative humidity inside the
greenhouse was always reduced when the ventilator was opened.
Even an external relative humidity of 85% (corresponding to out-
side values of 276 K and w = 0.004) was less than the situation in
closed greenhouses, which have a relative humidity of almost
90%. As occurred for the temperature (Fig. 3), most of the effects
in terms of RH reduction were obtained within the first 10–15°
of ventilator opening. If the outside air was very humid, ventilation
reduced the greenhouse RH very little. Indeed, opening the green-
house to reduce the relative humidity only made sense when the
outside humidity was lower than the inside. It can be inferred from
the ES parametric study that it is always useful to ventilate in the
event of thermal inversion. This conclusion agrees with results
reported by Baptista (2007).
The condensation rate in terms of the outside air humidity and
the ventilator opening angle is shown in Fig. 5. It can be concluded
that when the external humidity was high, ventilation did not pre-
vent condensation. In some cases, condensation actually drastically
increased. The presence of high external humidity and a high ven-
tilation rate combined with a low cover temperature paved the
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141 137

Fig. 4. Inside relative humidity for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 256 K
and a soil heat flux of 25 W m2.

Fig. 5. Condensation rate for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 256 K and a
soil heat flux 25 W m2.

way for a high condensation rate. The condensation rate can be
overpredicted by the ES model because this numerical technique
provides a single result. Meanwhile, in the CFD simulations, only
the water vapour in contact with the surface below the dew point
temperature was able to condensate; in the ES model, all water
vapour below the dew point temperature condensated. Although
the condensation rate might be overestimated in quantity com-
pared to the real scenario, its results are clear from a qualitative
point of view. Ventilation reduced the inside humidity but did
not necessarily prevent condensation from forming on the inner
roof.
3.3.2. Intermediate case: equivalent sky temperature of 273 K and soil
heat flux of 25 W m2
The case of the covered sky presented major differences com-
pared to clear-sky conditions. Under a covered sky, thermal inver-
sion does not occur because the equivalent sky temperature is
almost the same as the outside air temperature. This is related to
the high humidity level that greenhouse air can reach. Situations
that fall in this category are more difficult to handle because any
possible gain of a lower humidity content could be lost by letting
warmer air escape from the greenhouse, thus lowering the temper-
ature of the cover and the interior air. As in Section 3.3.1, a para-
metric study was performed in the covered-sky scenario in terms
of ventilation and the exterior humidity ratio. A total of 225 ES
cases was simulated with different exterior humidity ratios
(0.001 6 w 6 0.004) and openings ((0° 6 K 6 90°).
In the intermediate case there was no thermal inversion.
Therefore, in terms of heat conservation, opening the ventilator
always implied a drop in temperature, regardless of the humidity
ratio of the outside air, as shown in Fig. 6. In addition, air exchange
with only a 5° opening angle had a relevant impact on overall
greenhouse temperature. For higher angles of ventilator opening,
the interior temperature tended asymptotically towards the out-
side temperature of 276 K.
We compared the relative humidity in a covered-sky scenario
(Fig. 7) with the clear-sky scenario (Fig. 4). In all cases, the relative
humidity dropped when the vents were opened slightly. Of course,
138 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141

Fig. 6. Inside temperature for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 273 K and a
soil heat flux of 25 W m2.

Fig. 7. Inside RH for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 273 K and a soil heat
flux of 25 W m2.

Fig. 8. Condensation rate for different combinations of ventilator opening degrees and external humidity ratios for the case of an equivalent sky temperature of 273 K and a
soil heat flux of 25 W m2.
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
due to the gradient of water vapour concentration between the
inside and the outside, the relative humidity tended to balance
out, so it dropped when the outside RH was lower. In this scenario,
the main drawback of opening vents was that the inside tempera-
ture was reduced, as cooler air flowed into the greenhouse. In con-
clusion, to prevent excessive humidity problems in the crop,
ventilating the greenhouse is recommended in all cases except
when the outside humidity is over 85%, i.e. the threshold value
given by Campen (2009). A good choice is an opening angle of
between 10° and 15° because the RH can be reduced enough in
most cases without losing too much heat.
Regarding condensation rate for covered skies, it can be
observed from Fig. 8 that condensation was always prevented by
opening the ventilator. This is because the humidity content of
0.004 kg kg1 is below the value obtained by computing the
humidity ratio at the saturation point imposed by the cover tem-
perature. Consequently, there can be no condensation in any case.
4. Discussion
This paper introduces a novel way of using CFD and ES models
to study greenhouse climate. The idea was not to take an exclusive
approach, but to allow the two models to collaborate and gain a
better understanding of the system. In this perspective, collabora-
tion was based on the exchange of CFD convective coefficients and
ventilation rates with the ES model. The coupled ES model had the
advantage of being independent of empirical coefficients, thus
making it more robust.
The coupling approach presented here can be improved by per-
forming only one comprehensive CFD parametric study to extract
the convective coefficients and ventilation rates, instead of two dif-
ferent sets of simulations. The problem with this approach is that it
has higher computational costs, but the advantage is that it pro-
vides a ventilation rate that takes into account the air movement
caused by the combined effect of wind and buoyancy. This study
presented a subset of all possible climate scenarios. The convective
coefficients are particularly applicable for unheated conditions and
one wind speed and direction. Nevertheless, the approach was
modular and further studies should be done to include heated sit-
uations as well as all or part of the spectrum of wind direction and
wind speed. Including more parameters and scenarios will greatly
increase the number of CFD simulations required. In order to
reduce the number of simulations, design of experiment tech-
niques can be a used. The aim is to create an experimental design
that can sample a high-dimensional space in a representative way
with a minimum number of samples. Classical examples of design
of experiments include central composite design (Giunta et al.,
2003), which requires 1 + 2N + 2N samples, and the Box–Behnken
design, which calls for 1 + 4N + (N  1)/2 samples. However, these
CFD simulations were not necessary in our case because the cou-
pled method proposed in this paper was used to develop ventila-
tion strategies to improve night-time climate conditions in
passive greenhouses in terms of humidity, temperature and con-
densation for a wide range of situations.
The coupling presented in this paper was a one way transfer of
information from CFD to ES; it is possible to have a two-way
exchange of information between the models by selecting the most
relevant cases identified by the ES parametric study and running
detailed CFD simulations of those selected cases. This was not
undertaken in the present study in order to limit the extension
of this paper.
Validation is a fundamental part of a simulation model, but was
not included in this paper due to the intrinsic difficulty of trying to
measure the greenhouse ventilation rate accurately. The CFD sim-
ulations, ES models and their coupling had been previously vali-
dated in our experimental setting with good agreement with
139
experimental measurements (Piscia et al., 2012, 2013). Three tech-
niques are commonly used (the heat balance, mass balance or tra-
cer gas technique and the decay method using nitrous oxide) and a
full review of them can be found in Roy et al. (2002).
The ES model can be seen as a surrogate form of the CFD model
(Eldred et al., 2004) that can quickly include CFD predictions in a
much smaller time scale. In this perspective, the ES represents a
way of making the CFD results available outside the CFD frame-
work. The ES model can easily be used by a wider audience that
includes growers and technical advisors.
In addition, the CFD model did not take into account the ques-
tion of air leakage. In CFD modelling, taking infiltration into
account is difficult, since it requires defining the location and
geometry of the openings through which the greenhouse air could
exit and this information is not usually available. However, venti-
lation can be compared with known cases of air leakage. For
instance, if an air leakage value of 1.34 V h1 (López et al., 2001;
Baille et al., 2006) is considered for a wind speed of 2 m s1, then
the air leakage corresponds to a ventilation rate of 0.04 kg s1,
which is one order of magnitude smaller than the ventilation rate
provided by a 5° ventilator opening (0.3 kg s1). Even though air
leakage can be neglected when the greenhouse is ventilated, this
second-order effect can be included in the ES models by adapting
the semi-empirical formulas found in the literature (López et al.,
2001; Baille et al., 2006).
In the future, the ES model can be enhanced by coupling it with a
plant response model, which would make it possible to directly link
the effects of different ventilation strategies to plant production out-
puts. This further step is in the same direction as the one proposed by
Vanthoor (2011), which presented a global design model that took
into account energy, plant response and economic returns.
As stated above, we only studied the case of an unheated green-
house because our aim was to study a Mediterranean-based green-
house. Nevertheless, Piscia et al. (2012) reported that humidity
was not reduced through ventilation of a heated greenhouse; in
fact, the inside temperature was higher than the outside tempera-
ture and the relative humidity was below the threshold limit of
85%. These results may seem surprising, since it is a common prac-
tice in Central European greenhouses to combine heating and ven-
tilation or to force preheated external air for humidity control
(Campen, 2009). This may be due to the fact that the value for
night-time transpiration was taken from a previous study in the
unheated greenhouse and was considered a constant. Night-time
transpiration is probably higher in heated greenhouses.
Therefore, results from the ES and CFD models may differ from
the aforementioned data from Piscia et al. (2012). In any case,
modelling night-time transpiration in heated greenhouses is a
research subject beyond the scope of the present study.
Based on the analysis, for the scenarios taken into account,
night-time ventilation is recommended in both clear and overcast
sky conditions. This conclusion agrees with the findings of Baptista
(2007). Moreover, another advantage of night-time ventilation is
that it can significantly reduce the onset of Botrytis cinerea disease
(Baptista et al., 2012). Besides ventilation, there are other ways of
improving greenhouse climate conditions. For instance, as reported
in Piscia et al. (2013), it would be advantageous for the cover to be
made of a material with high reflectivity (low emissivity and trans-
missivity). Unfortunately, no such material is currently available.
Another reasonable option would be the use of materials to accu-
mulate heat during the day and release this energy at night, thus
increasing the greenhouse temperature. For example, containers
filled with water are an economic way of storing heat. However,
more expensive procedures may be available such as using
phase-change materials to increase the greenhouse temperature.
As with water containers, the soil could also be used for heat stor-
age. Throughout this paper, the soil is considered a surface with
140 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141

constant conductivity, diffusivity and water content. Changing soil B4 ¼ maxð0; uw  2Þ; ðA5Þ
properties could be a useful way to improve the soil’s thermal stor-
age capacity, which could be beneficial for greenhouse climate. B5 ¼ maxð0; 2  uw Þ; ðA6Þ

5. Conclusions B6 ¼ B4 maxð0; sinðKÞ  0:499770102643102Þ; ðA7Þ

This paper introduces a new approach to greenhouse climate

B7 ¼ B4 maxð0; 0:499770102643102  sinðKÞÞ; ðA8Þ
simulation. The method is based on the coupling of an ES model
B8 ¼ maxð0; 0:865759839492344  sinðKÞÞ; ðA9Þ
with a CFD model. This technique was applied to study the effect
of ventilation on greenhouse temperature, humidity and
B9 ¼ B8 maxð0; 2  uw Þ; ðA10Þ
condensation.
Two CFD parametric studies were performed to compute the
ventilation rates and convective coefficients. The first study Appendix B. Nomenclature and subscripts
obtained the ventilation rate for different combinations of wind
speeds and ventilator opening angles. The results showed strong
linearity between the ventilation rate and the ventilator opening A area (m2)
angle and were included in the ES model by means of a quadratic a fitting parameter (kg m2)
spline. The second CFD study computed the convective coefficients b fitting parameter (kg s1 m1)
for different external conditions. The CFD simulations show that c fitting parameter (kg m2)
convective coefficients depend strongly on the ventilation rate, cp heat capacity at constant pressure of air (J kg1 K1)
but do not suffer substantial variations when the sky temperature cp,w heat capacity at constant pressure of water vapour
is changed. (J kg1 K1)
This work analysed the effects of ventilation on greenhouse cli- CFD computational fluid dynamics
mate under different conditions, specifically two scenarios of DOM discrete ordinate model
major interest. The first represented clear-sky conditions and the ES energy balance simulation
second overcast-sky conditions combined with a lack of heat he enthalpy of condensation of water (J kg1)
(SHF of 25 W m2). Under clear-sky conditions, the coupled ES k turbulent kinetic energy (J)
model indicated that ventilation was always advisable, but that L characteristic length (m)
opening the roof ventilators slightly was sufficient. Under Mw mass of water vapour (kg)
overcast-sky conditions, ventilation was recommended in most m slope of the linear fit
cases. Ventilation was only unnecessary when the outside air N number of variables
humidity was over 85%. Further studies could combine ventilation p pressure (Pa)
with the use of containers of water or different soils with higher q heat flux (W m2)
conductivity as ways of increasing the efficiency of passive r linear correlation coefficient
greenhouses. RH relative humidity (%)
SU momentum source (kg m2 s2)
Acknowledgements ST heat source (W m3)
Sq mass source (kg m3 s1)
The work presented here was carried out within INIA (project SHF soil heat flux (W m2)
RTA2012-00039-CO2-01). This research was also supported by t time (s)
the EUPHOROS Project, the European Commission, the T absolute temperature (K)
Directorate General for Research, the 7th Framework Programme UDF user-defined function
for RTD, Theme 2 e Biotechnology, Agriculture & Food, contract ! velocity vector (m s1)
211457. Thanks are also given to INIA fellowship FPI-INIA 92. U
u velocity component of the x coordinate (m s1)
uw wind velocity (m s1)
Appendix A. Quadratic spline
V greenhouse volume (m3)
w humidity ratio (kg kg1)
The ventilation rate values obtained by the CFD parametric
a convective heat transfer coefficient (W m2 K1)
study were embedded in the ES model by using the following
quadratic spline:
e relative error (%)
e average relative error (%)
U ¼ ð19:3941877273305 þ 15:0399995903575 B1 et rate of dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy
 22:5664934534249 B2  4:50069762381828 B3 (m2 s3)
k thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
þ 9:85686151491185 B4  14:6458277948187 B5 l turbulent dynamic viscosity (kg m1 s1)
þ 19:1931416709916 B6  19:418993497707 B7 q fluid density (kg m3)
 15:074984018779 B8 þ 16:4915503604416 B9Þ=12; ðA1Þ K ventilator opening angle (°)
DT temperature difference (K)
where U ventilation rate (kg s1)
C transpiration rate of the crop (kg s1)
B1 ¼ maxð0; sinðKÞ  0:258690844053802Þ; ðA2Þ
X condensation rate on the cover (kg s1)
Subscript
B2 ¼ maxð0; 0:258690844053802  sinðKÞÞ; ðA3Þ
air greenhouse air
B3 ¼ B1 maxð0; uw  2Þ; ðA4Þ c convective
 D. Piscia et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 115 (2015) 129–141
ci cover interior
e exterior air
s soil
swi sidewall interior
sky sky
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