Factors affecting the ageing refrigerated transport equipment.

The performance of insulated enclosures for refrigerated vehicles is usually characterized by their overall insultation coefficient (“K coefficient”). The insulation performance is ageing during the time. This ageing affects the refrigeration and environmental performances of the vehicles and may have a significant cost on their exploitation as well as on their lifetime. To better understand the phenomena involved in the ageing process, experimental assessment of the real ageing based on key life periods of a representative number of vehicles was performed. This assessment highlighted the discrepancy between the K coefficient of in-service vehicles and their prototypes, while the international agreement and the current Regulation base their performance classification on prototypes, not on series products. This analysis also allowed to evaluate the impact of some vehicles accessories on the ageing.