Tomographic imaging of air curtains in display cabinets compared to thermal measurements.

The authors present a method for characterizing air curtains in upright open refrigerated display cabinets; this method involves definition of quantities and analysis of tomographic imagery showing air-flow patterns revealed using smoke. A specially designed model was used to compare values in terms of new quantities with values obtained using classic measurements (refrigerating capacity, quantity of defrost water, air temperature); a marked correlation was seen between these 2 sets of data. This validation demonstrates that quantitative laser tomography can be envisaged as a method enabling improvement and optimization of refrigerated display cabinets.