Abstract:
India, an agriculture-based economy, is the second-largest producer of vegetable crops globally.
However, the seasonal and weather-dependent nature of these crops poses significant challenges,
prompting a growing adoption of technologies like protected farming. Introduced to India in
1998 through the Indo-Israel Greenhouse Project, greenhouse farming has expanded rapidly
but brought unique challenges, especially the issue of overheating during the summer months.
India’s abundant sunlight, particularly in summer, often results in temperatures inside
greenhouses exceeding optimal levels for plant growth. To address this, evaporative cooling
systems, such as pad-and-fan setups, are commonly employed. However, these systems signifi cantly increase water consumption, contradicting one of the primary objectives of protected
farming—efficient resource usage, particularly water.
The focus of this work is to quantify the extent of overheating in a lab-scale greenhouse
model and explore the potential of Infrared (IR) filtering to mitigate this issue. Experimental
results demonstrate the effectiveness of IR filters in reducing overheating, offering a promising
solution to this challenge. Additionally, this study presents a comprehensive approach to
predicting bulk air temperature inside greenhouses through two methodologies: Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and a simplified lumped mass reduced-order model. Both
models exhibit good accuracy in temperature prediction, providing valuable tools for optimizing
greenhouse designs and ensuring favorable growing conditions with efficient resource usage.
