A General Purpose Laboratory for Evaluating Livestock Ventilation Systems

A facility developed at Iowa State University was designed to test and provide research for full-scale livestock housing ventilation systems. A test chamber representing a 24-ft (7.3 m) section of a 42-ft-wide (12.8 m) swine finishing or nursery barn can be outfitted with a complete ventilation system. Operating characteristics of the ventilation system are monitored. These characteristics include ventilation rate, airspeed, and temperature in the animal-occupied zone, air jet profiles generated by the inlets, energy consumption of the ventilation system, and response characteristics of the control system. The chamber contains no animals. Sensible heat production is simulated with cone resistance heaters. Equipment in production barns such as feeders, waterers, gates, and flooring are included. The test chamber is also equipped with a pit area for conducting pit-ventilation studies. The test chamber, housed within the Air Dispersion Laboratory, is currently in use to investigate pit-ventilation effectiveness, heater control logic, ventilation system performance from manufactured systems, and to verify current recommendations of ventilation performance standards for livestock ventilation systems (Proposed ASAE Standard X567)