Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits

Drying is an old traditional method of removing liquid from inside material, suchas wood, food, paper, ceramics, building materials, textiles, granular products, pharmaceutical and electronic devices. The kinetics of this liquid removal depends on the material properties of the solid phase as well a...

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Main Author: Shahari, Nor Azni
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2012
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12485/
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author Shahari, Nor Azni
author_facet Shahari, Nor Azni
author_sort Shahari, Nor Azni
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Drying is an old traditional method of removing liquid from inside material, suchas wood, food, paper, ceramics, building materials, textiles, granular products, pharmaceutical and electronic devices. The kinetics of this liquid removal depends on the material properties of the solid phase as well as on cellular structure. The aim of this project is to understand the effect of complex interaction of heat, moisture and shrinkage to create a detailed mathematical modelling to quantify the drying of a food product and tropical fruits in particular, which typically have high water content. To this purpose, in first part of the thesis, an initial simple coupled diffusion model with Fickian moisture transfer and Fourier heat transfer by Wang and Brenann [122] has been extended. A one-dimensional model is applied with the effect of shrinkage for a prediction of moisture and temperature distribution during drying. Constant physical and thermal properties are used relevant to tropical fruits. A numerical solution technique, based on the method of lines, is used with local finite difference methods approximation to the drying. The results match well with published food drying simulation studies and the anticipated final state of shrinkage in particular. To obtain a detailed understanding of simultaneous heat and liquid transfer during drying of fruits, the internal structure has to be modelled. In fruit tissue, intercellular space existing within a highly complicated network of gaseous channels can be considered as a porous medium. Guided by this, an extended model of drying, incorporating the heterogeneous properties of the tissues and their cellular structure, is recognized and simplified to represent the physical model. In this model, a distinction is made between the different classes of water present in the material (free water, bound water and water vapour) and the conversion between them. Evaluation is applied to the range of one-dimensional structures of increasing complexity: the first is an isothermal model without consideration of heat effects; the remaining have heat effects but differ in the correlated spatial arrangement of micro and macro pores. All results are given as drying curves and phase distributions during drying.
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T18:29:39Z
publishDate 2012
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spelling nottingham-124852025-02-28T11:19:33Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12485/ Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits Shahari, Nor Azni Drying is an old traditional method of removing liquid from inside material, suchas wood, food, paper, ceramics, building materials, textiles, granular products, pharmaceutical and electronic devices. The kinetics of this liquid removal depends on the material properties of the solid phase as well as on cellular structure. The aim of this project is to understand the effect of complex interaction of heat, moisture and shrinkage to create a detailed mathematical modelling to quantify the drying of a food product and tropical fruits in particular, which typically have high water content. To this purpose, in first part of the thesis, an initial simple coupled diffusion model with Fickian moisture transfer and Fourier heat transfer by Wang and Brenann [122] has been extended. A one-dimensional model is applied with the effect of shrinkage for a prediction of moisture and temperature distribution during drying. Constant physical and thermal properties are used relevant to tropical fruits. A numerical solution technique, based on the method of lines, is used with local finite difference methods approximation to the drying. The results match well with published food drying simulation studies and the anticipated final state of shrinkage in particular. To obtain a detailed understanding of simultaneous heat and liquid transfer during drying of fruits, the internal structure has to be modelled. In fruit tissue, intercellular space existing within a highly complicated network of gaseous channels can be considered as a porous medium. Guided by this, an extended model of drying, incorporating the heterogeneous properties of the tissues and their cellular structure, is recognized and simplified to represent the physical model. In this model, a distinction is made between the different classes of water present in the material (free water, bound water and water vapour) and the conversion between them. Evaluation is applied to the range of one-dimensional structures of increasing complexity: the first is an isothermal model without consideration of heat effects; the remaining have heat effects but differ in the correlated spatial arrangement of micro and macro pores. All results are given as drying curves and phase distributions during drying. 2012-07-19 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12485/1/thesis_shahari.pdf Shahari, Nor Azni (2012) Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
spellingShingle Shahari, Nor Azni
Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title_full Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title_fullStr Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title_full_unstemmed Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title_short Mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
title_sort mathematical modelling of drying food products: application to tropical fruits
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12485/