International Journal of Smart Grid and Clean Energy Optimal design for energy usage of cooling system in animal farm using CFD model Chawannat Jaroenkhasemmeesuk a , Nipat Noysiri a , Teerachot Jumroonroge a , Katayut Kamano b a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, 73170, Thailand b Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang Mai, 50300, Thailand Abstract Animal farming is the significant propulsion for Thailand’s economy. Animal house is not only the important contributor to their quality but also the factors controller for their hygiene. The major cost to operate an animal house is the energy cost to control the most suitable condition for animals. Thai agriculturists normally operated their farms based on their understanding or their own experiment without any analysis. This may lead to the wrong solutions and unsustainable condition. In this work, the swine house was considered as a study case to optimize condition between suitable condition (thermo-neutral zone) for pigs and energy cost. The cooling system includes cooling pad and exhaust fans were constructed to reduce and control both temperature and moisture in the house. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models were modeled and analyzed the factors of wind direction, temperature and temperature distribution throughout the swine house. The analysis result was used to determine the operation of exhaust fans. The result showed that, in average temperature day, the operation of exhaust fan can reduce to 80-40%. The results of all study cases were analyzed to create the operation chart for the automotive controlling system in the future. Keywords: animal farm, cooling system, cooling pad, computational fluid dynamics (cfd) simulation, economize system 1. Introduction Agriculture is the key sector for ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) member’s economic growth, particularly for Thailand. Thailand’s development has been generally based on the export of agricultural products [1]. The major animal products are chicken, cow, and swine. Thailand continues to import the genetic materials from world top class breeding, thus the reproductive performance was improved following the figure of the origin such as Denmark. Reproductive performance in top rank farms is close to the average figure of front-line countries, 28 pigs weaned/sow/year are achieved [2]. The quality of animal can be controlled by an environmental condition which includes thermal, dietary, stress and management level. The swine house is the significant factor to contribute to the quality of pigs. According to pig characteristic, do not have sweat glands, pigs cannot stand the hot and high moisture weather [3]. Thus, swine house should be able to control the temperature and percentage of moisture and to protect heat from the sun. It should have located in the non-flooded and far from the community area with the efficiency to drainage pigs’ feces to reduce the problem from air pollution. The internal temperature which suitable for pig is about 15-25°C [4, 5], called the thermo-neutral zone of the pig as * Manuscript received August 14, 2018; revised June 30, 2019. Corresponding author. Tel.: (+66) 91-789-2355; E-mail address: ch.jaroenkhasemmeesuk@gmail.com, chawannat.jar@mahidol.ac.th. doi: 10.12720/sgce.8.6.655-661