CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Mathematical modeling and computational simulation to solve heat transfer problems in food engineering are fundamental tools for design, process optimization and the development of new technologies. This presentation describes different problems addressed in our research group, where the non-stationary solution of the partial differential equation was obtained by applying the finite element method in domains of irregular geometry with convective boundary conditions. The first case refers to the application of a thermal treatment in meat products coupled to the simultaneous inactivation of E.coli O157: H7 bacteria, which is associated with the production of hemolytic uremic syndrome. The second example, includes the mathematical description of the different stages in the processing of marine crabs: i) the heat treatment to achieve the detachment of the muscular tissue adhered to the exoskeleton, which requires the denaturation of the myofibrillar proteins; ii) the freezing of these products of irregular geometry whose properties vary strongly with temperature and in which a change of variables has been used (enthalpy formulation and Kirchhoff function) to facilitate the solution. Finally, the optimization of the process of industrialization of frozen pre-cooked vegetables is described; heat transfer is coupled to the biphasic kinetics of enzymatic inactivation and then the freezing stage is modeled and the quality parameters of the product are analyzed.In all the described cases, emphasis is placed on the experimental determination of the physical properties of the food and the heat transfer coefficients at the interface, since they constitute an essential information for solving the numerical model. Likewise, in each problem analyzed, the experimental validation of the numerical predictions is discussed

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