Experimental Investigation of spherical food product at different air velocities and radial positions during forced convection cooling

Abstract

Using pre-cooling technique, food products of perishable nature are desired to be conserved from spoiling. Fruits and vegetables and are suggested to be precooled just after harvesting to avoid any food decay. The precooling enhance their storage life and keeps up quality of vegetables and fruits. Thus, an experimental analysis has been carried out to study temperature variation of spherical food product, i.e. mosambi, during the precooling process. In the current study, the effect of three different air velocities, i.e. 4.3, 4.8 and 5.0 m/s, during precooling of spherical food product has been observed in a forced convection environment. Also, determination of the thermophysical properties of the spherical food product for three different radial positions, i.e. XC= 0.042 m (centre), XM= 0.028 mm (middle) and XS= 0.014 m (surface), has been carried out. The effect of different air velocities and different radial positions on temperature profile of food product was detected. It has been noticed that proper choice of cold air velocity can decrease cooling time of spherical food product, hence resulting in energy saving.