Evaporative Cooling Bike Trailer
MIT EC.720 • D-Lab Design
Spring 2023, with Diane Heinle ‘23, Oliver Chinn ‘23, Runako Gentles ‘24, and Zhixing Chen ‘25
The Problem
Farmers on small farms in South Africa must travel 1-15 km to bring their produce to markets. However, many small farmers do not own their own vehicle, forcing them to rent or borrow vehicles or hire a delivery service. On top of these services being an added expense for farmers, farmers are at the mercy of the reliability of the vehicles and the drivers. An unmodified bike trailer would be ineffective because it would leave produce to wilt in the hot daytime temperatures. A cooling system cannot rely on electricity due to both the expense of batteries and the extreme unreliability of the electrical grid in South Africa.
Our Solution
We designed a bicycle trailer with both a shade canopy and an evaporative cooling system. It can carry over 100 kg of produce but is lightweight enough to be towed by our target demographic, female farmers. Our evaporative cooling system uses wet jutesack, a canvas material that is widely available, and takes advantage of the air flow generated by riding the bike. Our testing demonstrated that the cooling system can lower the temperature of produce by 1-5 degrees C during a sunny 15-60 minute ride. The shade canopy is designed to maximize airflow and, by extension, cooling capacity.
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