Comparative study on the effect of cargo arrangement methods on the airflow temperature distribution in a refrigerated truck container

• Three cargo arrangement methods of a refrigerated truck container were proposed for numerical investigation, including centerline, offset, and pinwheel. • Many layout parameters were investigated for each cargo arrangement case. • The airflow and temperature distribution inside the refrigerated container were determined and compared. • Optimized layout parameters reduce the greatest temperature differences of 50, 65, and 12% for the centerline, offset, and pinwheel arrangements. • The centerline arrangement produced the most temperature uniformity with the maximum temperature difference on the cargo boxes of 3.5K. This work investigates the temperature distributions in a refrigerated truck container using three typical arrangement methods of cargo boxes, including the centerline, offset, and pinwheel. The effects of parameters, such as the gap between cargo boxes and the container floor, the lateral gap between cargo boxes, the longitudinal gap between cargo boxes, and the gaps between the cargo boxes and the side wall and front wall, are analyzed by the computational fluid dynamics approach in each cargo arrangement method. The results indicate that the layout parameters considerably affect the temperature distributions for centerline and offset methods, while their effects are insignificant for pinwheel methods. The set of optimal layout parameters reducing the temperature differences of 3.5, 6.5, and 1K for the centerline, offset, and pinwheel arrangement methods correspond to temperature uniformity improvements of up to 50, 65, and 12%, respectively. The centerline method achieves the most temperature uniformity due to enhanced airflow across cargo gaps, reducing stagnant zones and minimizing temperature differences. The offset approach does not indicate the more considerable decrement of the stagnant zone, as revealed in the centerline one. The pinwheel method showed limited improvement due to the restricted airflow at the container rear. This study offers an optimized cargo arrangement strategy to enhance temperature uniformity, conserve energy in refrigerated containers, and ultimately improve the quality of the product while minimizing operating costs and environmental impact.