CFD Simulation of Climate Conditions in an Ecotron Dedicated to Ecosystem Studies in the Context of Environmental Changes: Preliminary Results

摘要

An Ecotron is a structure which is ready to study ecosystems, organisms and biodiversity responses to environmental changes. It is composed of a transparent and confined Teflon dome developed by the CNRS of Montpellier (France) to provide a key link between the analysis of elementary functions in simplified conditions and the in-situ study of ecosystems. Such a structure bridges the gap between the complexity of real field communities and the simplicity of laboratory or greenhouse experiments. The objective of this study was to model the inside dynamic, thermal and water vapor fields. Our numerical modeling was based on the description of mass, momentum and heat balances and solved using a CFD software based on the Finite Volumes Method (FVM) (ANSYS/FLUENT v 12.1) which uses the k-ε model closure for the turbulence modeling. In addition, the dynamics, thermal and water vapor transfer between the crop cover and the air were described by means of user defined functions (UDF's) simultaneously solved by the CFD software. Experimental measurements carried out in the experimental unit of CNRS Montpellier were used to validate the model.