Johnson Refrigerated Truck Bodies said that it has developed an automatic defrost option for its fiberglass truck bodies that is “100% automatic, requires zero man-hours [and] no water.”
The new system does away with the problem of cold plate/blower systems that develop a layer of frost on the plate surface as they transfer heat from the interior of the truck body to the cold plates that regulate temperatures in trailers, a statement from Johnson Refrigerated said.
The company has received a patent for the system that will be an option for Johnson Premier fiberglass truck bodies equip-ped with RouteMax and cold plate/blower systems, the company said.
“The daily defrost cycle keeps frost from building up on the plates, so they operate more
efficiently and provide greater protection for cold products,” said Johnson Refrigerated, Rice Lake, Wis. “The defrost function is 100% automatic, requires zero man-hours, no water, and is a complete redesign of the industry-standard defrost system.”
Before auto-defrost, cold plates were defrosted manually with fresh water every few days to maintain the cooling efficiency of the cold plates, the company said.
“Environmentally speaking, auto-defrost is beneficial because no water is used to defrost the plates, whereas cold plate systems without auto-defrost use up to 150 gallons of fresh water to defrost plates,” the company said.
Johnson Refrigerated said the auto-defrost system would be “a breakthrough solution for many companies located in geographic areas where water runoff is forbidden.”
