Investigation of Thermal and Environmental Conditions of an Enclosed White Shrimp Hatchery Building

White shrimp is one of the most significant products exported by Thailand. Nowadays, enclosed hatchery 10 buildings are commonly used to obtain desired environmental conditions and to ensure biosecurity. The main 11 objective of this study is to investigate thermal and environmental conditions of an enclosed white shrimp hatchery 12 building by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and in situ measurements. The information gathered 13 would be useful for the development of enclosed hatchery buildings to obtain favourable thermal rearing 14 conditions for the growth and survival of shrimp larvae. The commercial full-scale enclosed hatchery building 15 situated in Pathio, Chumphon, Thailand, was selected for this study. Multi-data loggers were placed at designated 16 areas of the hatchery building to measure indoor/outdoor dry bulb air temperature and rearing water temperature. 17 The results show that the indoor air temperature fluctuated within 26.9-37.8oC during a day; it increased during the 18 daytime and decreased at nighttime. Water temperature varied within 30.6-32.5oC exceeding the recommended 19 values, 28-30oC. The distribution of indoor air temperature obtained from CFD agreed well with those obtained 20 from in situ measurements with a maximum relative error of approximately 5%. Large areas of extremely low 21 airflow (dead zones) were presented inside the hatchery building. It is suggested that the improvement of a 22 ventilation system is needed to minimize dead zones and to obtain appropriate thermal rearing conditions.