Cryofridge, a Frappa group brand, has taken a step into the onboard refrigeration market by entrusting Crouzet Automation with the control of its indirect nitrogen cryo-units. When flexibility, support and reactivity make all the difference. The coach-building group Frappa supports haulage professionals by providing all their refrigerated transport equipment needs. This French company is constantly updating its offer for a road haulage market that is still feeling the effects of the credit crunch and suffers from a poor image as a noisy polluter that nonetheless provides an essential service. Combining vision and innovation, it capitalizes on a wealth of experience in this field to produce ever more ingenious, greener solutions.
In 2010 the Frappa group, via its Cryofridge brand, diversified into indirect nitrogen refrigeration with the Silencio system. The principle: nitrogen circulates in an exchanger and cold is distributed through the insulated space. The benefits are that the system is quiet (allelectric), meaning that deliveries can be made in urban areas both day and night without disturbing the residents. It is also eco-friendly (no CO2 emissions), unlike more conventional refrigeration systems that use fuel to power the refrigeration unit, which runs with a fan and a heat engine. Cryofridge uses this technology in its single or multi-temperature trailers (one or two compartments in a single trailer), and generates both “positive” refrigeration (keeping food fresh) and negative refrigeration (freezing and deepfreezing).
To manage this system, Cryofridge was until recently using an electronic card developed for the aerospace industry, which was rigid, complicated to use and to program. The development team was keen to migrate to a more flexible solution, that would be easier to program and set up. They also wished to not only provide temperature control and nitrogen level functions, but also offer drivers a user-friendly, intuitive human-machine interface. Its impeccable level of support led to Crouzet Automation’s solution being chosen for this touch panels, two Millenium 3 Smart logic controllers and accessories from the range.
After learning to use the programming workshops (M3 Soft and MTP) in no time, the Cryofridge team was able to program the Millenium 3 logic controllers and MTP panels. In addition, “Crouzet Automation’s engineers were on hand from the start of the project to help us define the Silencio management system architecture, and during the tests conducted on it. This meant we were able to build the system in record time: just 3 months”, says Bernard Valentin, Consultant Engineer at Cryofridge. Programmable touch panels connected directly to the logic controllers were also a factor in our choice of Crouzet Automation to manage this project”, Germain Blauvac, R&D manager at Frappa, is keen to add. “They are very easy to use for truck drivers; they control the system directly, whereas we receive precious feedback concerning the history of the controlled parameters”.
On the basis of this experience, Frappa decided to roll out this system to food trucks, a buoyant new segment in the fast food industry. This involves controlling the temperature of the vehicle’s freezer unit and chiller unit. “We are proud to have created added value for our customers”, notes Julien Torre-Frappa, the
Managing Director of Frappa. “Thanks to this solution, our customer has complete control of the refrigeration chain, a must in his business”.
