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Lookup NU author(s): Paul Jackson, Dr Jonathan Guy, Dr Barbara Sturm, Professor Steve BullORCiD, Emerita Professor Sandra Edwards
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
In conventionally-designed buildings for finishing pigs, extreme weather conditions can impact negatively on feed utilisation and animal welfare. The SPaTHE (Solar, Passive, Thermal, Heat Exchange) concept is an innovative, resource-efficient engineered building designed to provide an internal environment where finishing pigs can thrive. Passive design elements include solar shading and capture combined with integrated earth tubes to facilitate heat exchange with incoming fresh air to reduce extreme summer and winter internal temperatures. The SPaTHE specification was dynamically modelled and compared to an existing conventional finisher building operating in the UK. The same dimensions (18 m × 14 m) and build specification were used for each building, which was designed to hold 292 pigs from 20 to 100 kg liveweight. Results showed that pigs in the optimum configuration of conventional building form spent 661 fewer h y-1 in conditions < 19ºC, and 102 fewer h y-1 in conditions > 28ºC than with a standard building. Whereas with the SPaTHE design, during 2222 h y-1 the pigs were kept at optimum conditions between 19ºC to 22ºC. The model also estimated that the SPaTHE design would reduce peak summer internal operative temperature by 3.4ºC when the external temperature was 28ºC, and increase the peak winter internal operative temperature by 1.2ºC when the external air temperature is -5.4ºC. Hence the concept design potentially provides an environment which more closely matches the needs of finishing pigs and thus may contribute to more sustainable food production systems.
Author(s): Jackson P, Guy JH, Sturm B, Bull S, Edwards SA
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Biosystems Engineering
Year: 2018
Volume: 174
Pages: 190-203
Print publication date: 01/10/2018
Online publication date: 07/08/2018
Acceptance date: 17/07/2018
Date deposited: 15/09/2018
ISSN (electronic): 1537-5110
Publisher: Elsevier
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2018.07.008
DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2018.07.008
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