It is my firm belief that airflow and air distribution is every bit as important in refrigeration design as load calculations. What good is a properly sized system that can’t deliver the air to areas that need it? Poor air distribution and airflow lead to stratification in temperature and humidity as well as poor heat transfer.
For those of you who may not know, air distribution in refrigeration is quite a bit different from air distribution in HVAC. The old rule of thumb in HVAC is 400 cfm/ton. In refrigeration we typically deliver well over 2,000 cfm/ton. Where in HVAC we are distributing air through a system of ducts, in refrigeration we are blowing air freely, in most instances, as hard as we can down aisles in cold storage facilities. In refrigeration, selection and placement of the correct equipment is critical. (It’s critical in HVAC too, but I will save that for an upcoming article.)