Building and reconstruction of low temperature warehouses from PRIMEHOLOD

PRIMEHOLOD offers building and reconstruction of both standard and low temperature warehouses for storing a wide range of products. Low-temperature refrigeration warehouses and cameras work in the temperature modes from 0 °С to -35 °С. We guarantee high technological characteristics and choosing the best industrial refrigerating units for constructing warerooms on your order.

A warehouse building takes from three to six months. The construction of warehouse complexes corresponds to what will be stored inside, the amount of products, the best temperature for storage. Air coolers are installed in chambers. They provide constant even air circulation inside.

Manufacturers and suppliers of food products and beverages, logistical operators and product retailers are the major consumers of refrigerating warehouses.

Low-temperature warehouses are divided into a few categories based on product specialization and corresponding temperature modes:
-deep freeze warehouses - freezers with temperatures from -18 to -27 °С for long-term storage of meat, fish, semi-products and seafood);
- gastronomy warehouses - the supported temperature is from 0 to +5 °С, used for storing dairy products, gastronomy, vegetables, fruits, cooled meat and fish);
- vegetable stores (from -1 to +4 °С). There are other variants - winery warehouses, cameras for storing furs, perfumes, chemical products.

Modern refrigerating warehouses have the following classification:
Class A+ - the height of piling space is above 12 m, the build-up area is up to 40%.
Class A - height up to 12m; Class B - height up to 10 m; Class C; Class D - height up to 4 m.

Depending on the nomenclature of the stored cargo the refrigerating warehouses can be specialized or universal. Refrigerating chambers inside the warehouse are divided to low-temperature chambers (down to -30°С) - for long-term storage of frozen products, cameras for storing cooled products (from -4°С to +6°С), universal cameras (-20°С - 0°С). The structure of load-carrying ability and space-planning solutions of the refrigeration must provide progressive technology of refrigerating processing and storage of products, rational cargo traffic in the building, high level of mechanization for handling operations, modern computerized cargo control in minimal expenses for cargo processing and refrigerating means.

Modern refrigerating warehouses are impossible to imagine without storage rack systems for pallet storing, airproof, heat-insulated gates to cameras. Entry aperture must be equipped by air curtains or high-speed automatic shutters. As a rule, automobile loading ramps have closed construction with inner cooling, rehandling facilities for reception of goods. They are equipped by dock levellers, dock shelters and dock houses. All this equipment provides high speed of freight operation and minimizes cold losses, decreasing the expenses for product storage.

Choosing load bearing structures and insulation materials is highly important factor in refrigeration warehouse design. As a rule, newly-built refrigeration warehouses utilize pre-engineered metal constructions with walls and ceiling made of sandwich panels with different fillers (urethane foam, rockwool, foam plastic). Type and thickness of the filler are defined by a project developer depending on the character of stored products, temperature modes and requirements of flaming security, sanitary and hygiene.

The cooling system is selected based on the technical and economical analysis, comparing different systems by the amount of capital and operating expenses assuming the full satisfaction of all technical requirements and providing required temperature modes for products storage.

Generally the solution implies a system with direct refrigeration by a cooling agent and a system with an intermediate coolant (water, brine, ethylene glycol, frizium, etc.). The advantage of systems with coolant is multiple decrease of the required amount of expensive coolant, Freon gas or dangerous ammonia. The disadvantages include bigger electric energy consumption (up to 24%) that is spent on transporting the coolant and lower coolant boiling temperature.

The systems with immediate coolant boiling are usually equipped by intrachamber air coolers that provide even spreading of cooled air inside the chamber. The amount of coolant circulating via such air coolers is insignificant. The disadvantage of coolant air cooling is the need in often defrosting of chambers that imply energy expenses and temperature jumps inside the camera. Such systems with immediate coolant boiling can have or have no pump (the coolant circulation is provided by the condensation pressure). Pumping schemes are used for big, branchy refrigerating stations.

Refrigeration units with intermediate coolant can provide required temperatures in chambers in the same range, as the units with immediate boiling. The major advantage of such units is small amount of coolant that is very beneficial when using ammonia. It helps to reduce expenses on initial loading and further reloading by coolant (Freon gas, ammonia, CO2). Decrease of coolant amount also improves the operation security. Increase of capital expenses on additional equipment is major disadvantage of such systems.

The newest tendency in refrigeration warehouses design and construction is using carbon dioxide (CO2) as a cold carrier instead of expensive Freon gases (the cost of CO2 is in tens of times smaller). Carbon dioxide belongs to natural substances that do not destroy the ozone layer as opposite to Freon, whose application is restricted by Kyoto Protocol. Leading European manufacturers have developed compressors and refrigeration system components working on CO2. Refrigerating systems based on CO2 provide high EFF, higher than Freon or ammonia in low-temperature range. CO2-based systems use subcritical or transcritical cycles, and therefore - cascade or single-staged scheme. The problems of using CO2 in refrigerating units include higher requirements to materials and quality of assembling due to high operating pressures in the system and risk of incidental pressure - up to 70 atm. However, CO2-based refrigerating systems are compact in size and provide significantly lower materials consumption.