Selection of The Most Suitable Type of Poultry Saloon in terms of Energy Consumption in Khuzestan Province

Introduction According to the importance of energy and the impact of this input on the final price of a product, selection of materials and components of poultry saloons is very important.  Poultry saloons are divided into two types: open saloons and closed saloons. In closed saloons, the choice of materials and components of the saloon (door, window, etc.) are more sensitive than the open type. Due to the climatic conditions of Khuzestan province, all of the used saloons in this province are almost closed. Poultry farms in Khuzestan province have a lot of cooling load in the warm seasons. If the materials and components of the saloons are not chosen properly, energy losses increase, and as a result, the price of meat increases. Therefore, investigating of heating and cooling loads of saloons and use of suitable components to prevent energy losses is necessary. Energy modeling of saloons and buildings is done by various software (Plast Energy, Design Builder, Trnsys, etc.). One of the most efficient and precise of this software is Carrier. Materials and Methods This study was conducted to calculate heating and cooling loads in different climates of Khuzestan province. In this research, the cities of Izeh, Shoosh, Abadan and Andimeshk were selected as corresponding to different climates in the province. Required data  for software was collected in three categories: (a) Weather data (geographic information, location of the saloon, local time zone and local soil specifications), (b) Data  about the physical properties of the building (general specifications of the space, internal sources of heat production (personslabors, poultry, equipment), (c) Specifications of walls, floor, windows and doors, ceiling and lighters, (d) Infiltration of air, (e) Systems, and (f) Information on power and fuel consumption. In this research, a rectangular saloon with dimensions of 85×16 meter was considered for all three types of conventional saloons in the province (block, brick and panel), which are the common dimensions and the capacity of these saloons is 20,000 broiler chickens. In this study, Carrier software was used to calculate heating and cooling loads. The results of software were verified by the amount of fuel and power consumption. Results and Discussion The sand and soil floors had the highest cooling load by 48828 and 53012 kJ h-1, respectively, while concrete and mosaic floors had lower cooling load than them. The heating load of these two floors (3906 kJ h-1) was less than that in the sand and soil floors. Concrete floor had better conditions to choose because of the less cost than the mosaic floor. Comparison of heating and cooling loads in different types of walls made of various materials showed that the block wall had the highest heating load of 429356 kJ h-1 and the highest cooling load by 658356 kJ h-1, while the sandwich panel wall had the lowest heating load by 116873 kJ h-1 and the lowest cooling load by 123618 kJ h-1. Three types of doors are commonly used in poultry houses: iron, fiberglass and aluminum. The results showed that the iron and fiberglass doors had the highest and lowest heating and cooling loads, respectively. The investigation of the effect of different types of windows on heating and cooling loads showed that iron and plastic windows had the highest and lowest heating and cooling loads, respectively. The results showed that Irannait ceiling had the highest heating and cooling loads by 371416 kJ h-1 and 787535 kJ h-1, respectively, while the ceiling made of sandwich panel had the lowest heating and cooling loads by 72756 kJ h-1 and 72429 kJ h-1, respectively, because of low heat transfer coefficient. Comparison of heating load of the saloons showed that the block saloon had the highest heating load by 891525 kJ h-1 and the suggested saloon in this study had the lowest heating load by 309068 kJ h-1. The block and suggested saloons also had the highest and lowest cooling loads by 1604828 kJ h-1 and 330795 kJ h-1, respectively. Conclusions The amount of heating and cooling loads for suggested saloon were 29.6% and 18.24% lower than that of brick and block saloons, respectively. The difference in the cost of constructing suggested and brick (the most common saloon in the province) saloons was 28.9 million tomans. By considering the difference in the cost of energy consumption of them (11.726 million tomans), this amount will be compensated after 2 years and 5 months and then will be returned on investment.