Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation and Quantification of Solar Greenhouse Temperature Based on Real Canopy Structure

Abstract

The temperature distribution of the cucumber canopy in an energy-saving solar greenhouse was simulated in this study. The canopy temperature data of autumn and winter cucumber were collected using temperature sensors, and the spatial heterogeneity of temperature distribution was analyzed. Utilizing ground-based LiDAR scanning, point cloud data of plant canopies were acquired to construct a convex hull porous model and leaf organ model. Validation against real solar greenhouse measurements revealed the convex hull porous model’s superior performance over the hexahedral porous model in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, with a root mean square error of 0.71 °C and a mean relative error of 2.9%, as opposed to 0.99 °C and 4.3%, respectively. Simulations in a scaled virtual greenhouse demonstrated the convex hull porous model and leaf organ model reduced temperature variation by 0.6 °C and 2.3 °C compared to the hexahedral porous model. The leaf organ model particularly provided a smooth temperature transition among leaves, closely approximating actual crop conditions. These results offer insights for crop model selection in greenhouse CFD modeling.