In the United Arab Emirates, 85% of the food is imported. These imported products travel long distances to make it to the shelf compromising quality, and nutrient value while contributing to pollution and costing billions in dollars. In addition, many crops cannot be grown locally due to temperature, soil, and water in the region. Therefore, controlled environment agriculture is a technique that can be used to secure food supplies in the UAE. This project aims to design an in- house farming-controlled environment food replicator where the conditions are heavily optimized for a crop and at an accelerated production rate.
The project goal involves selecting material based on thermal conductivities and reflectance as well as designing an optimal refrigeration cycle best suited to selected crops using HYSYS. In addition, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling will be used to study the heat and mass transfer within the system. A market analysis
will be conducted to compare the cost of production to available alternatives. Furthermore, a prototype can be developed using 3D printing.
Progress summary
The project contains several progress reports that display the working path of processing the project. Up to this point, the team has completed the research sector where they combined all useful information that has been found about the benefits of an in-house replicator project and conducted a beneficial literature review. Following that task, a letter of intent was written to the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority that propose the project and define the purpose.
In regards to the considered design, it has been divided into four parts that are; the type of crop, the type of material, light source and the refrigeration cycle best suitable for the design. Then, an analysis was done using the decision matrix tool to compare different alternatives and choose the best-suited option.