Multiphysics modeling of convective cooling of non-spherical, multi-material fruit to unveil its quality evolution throughout the cold chain

Abstract

Convective cooling is essential in many supply chain unit operations for refrigerated transport 17 and cold storage of fresh products. Fruit must be kept at low temperatures to preserve quality 18 and to slow down biochemically-driven food degradation. Along the cold chain, 19 heterogeneities in temperatures are present among individual products, which influence the 20 resulting product quality, causing significant food losses. This study presents a thermo-fluid 21 dynamic model of a single mango fruit to better understand the convective cooling behavior 22 of fruits with more complex, non-spherical shapes and a heterogeneous composition. To 23 explain the biochemical and biological processes affecting the product's final quality, 24 experimental data from the literature are used to calibrate kinetic rate laws for the prediction 25

Digital twins probe into food cooling and biochemical quality changes for reducing losses in refrigerated supply chains

“…In this study, a constant CHTC was assumed over the fruit surface because the airflow was not explicitly solved. A recent study unveiled differences in CHTCs between the trailing and leading edge (Tagliavini et al, 2019). In conclusion, temperature gradients are noticeable (so measurable) in the fruit, especially when cooling at high airspeeds.…”

“…Nonetheless, the sensitivity of the cooling to these small variations is relatively limited (Tagliavini et al, 2019). Mangos are strongly respiring fruit, generating about 40 mW (10 °C) up to 170 mW (20 °C) for our particular mango fruit (≈0.5 kg, (ASHRAE, 2010;Kader, 1997)).…”

“…A single CHTC was assumed over the entire fruit surface, as a simplified representation since a spatial CHTC variation can be present over the fruit surface (Defraeye et al, 2013;Tagliavini et al, 2019).…”

Recent Advances in Reducing Food Losses in the Supply Chain of Fresh Agricultural Produce

“…The mechanistic models developed for these studies included HMT models, as well as KMR for various quality attributes such as firmness, soluble solids content, and vitamin content [184] [185]. The air temperature data of the actual mango cold chain, collected as input from a temperature sensor was linked to these models to create a digital twin of a virtual mango fruit [184,185]. With the digital twins, the fruit quality evolution was quantified for multiple overseas shipments.…”

“…To gain a better insight into how fruits behave under convective cooling Mango At low speeds, a more uniform cooling can be achieved and thereby a more homogeneous quality decay within the mango; digital twin was able to evaluate the heterogeneity of the temperature field and identified the zones with the highest temperature inside the product, which can be valuable information for the placement of temperature probes [185]…”