ISHS Acta Horticulturae 566: II International Symposium on Application of Modelling as an Innovative Technology in the Agri-Food Chain; MODEL-IT
ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF A TWO-COMPONENT MODEL FOOD SYSTEM USING FINITE ELEMENT METHODS |
| Authors: | J.K. Carson, D.J. Tanner, S.J. Lovatt, A.C. Cleland |
| Keywords: | effective thermal conductivity, numerical modelling, voids in food products |
| Abstract:
Finite element numerical models were constructed to examine how the effective thermal conductivity (ke) of a material containing voids is affected by its structure. The models were designed to simulate a perfectly insulated guarded hot plate performing thermal conductivity measurements on a theoretical food product. Aspects of the food structure including void size and void shape were investigated. Simulation results were fitted by two commonly used effective thermal conductivity models with adjustable parameters: Krischer’s model and the Effective Medium Theory (EMT). The sizes of the individual voids were found to have a minor influence on the ke which decreased as the void size increased. A more significant influence on ke was the choice of structural model (hence void shape) that was used to represent the real food. The EMT model provided better fits to the simulation data. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
