<div>
<p>Thermal
processing is a critical step in shelf-stable food manufacturing to the ensure
safety of the food products. To accurately model and establish the thermal
processes, temperature-dependent thermal properties are needed. Existing
methods for measuring the temperature-dependent thermal diffusivity (α),
thermal conductivity (k) and volumetric heat capacity (C) are time consuming,
tend to have high errors, and cannot provide results in a single experiment,
especially at temperatures above 100°C. A novel bench scale device, named
Thermal Properties Cell (TPCell), was custom made to rapidly estimate the temperature-dependent
thermal parameters of food products. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The TPCell used thin film heaters as the heating elements. The
first study focused on estimating the thermal properties of a thin film heater.
Using mathematical modeling and sequential parameter estimation, the effective
thermal diffusivity of the thin film heater was found at different
temperatures. The estimated thermal properties of the thin film heater were
used for the second study.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The objective of the second study was to design optimal
complementary experiments using TPCell. Complementary experiments are a
combination of experiments that enable estimation of multiple thermal
parameters from the experimental temperature data, based on sensitivity analysis.
Sensitivity coefficients indicate the extent of change in a
measured variable due to a change in value of an input parameter. Designs
of experiments were simulated and their impact on sensitivity and optimality
criteria was analyzed. Results from the simulated profiles were validated using
sweet potato puree. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Learnings from this work can be directly
applied for the optimization of all types of food thermal processes, including
retort and aseptic processing. Optimally designed processes increase preservation
of the heat labile nutrients, color, flavor, and taste compounds, thereby enhancing the quality of food products.</p>
</div>
<br>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12272189 |
| Date | 08 May 2020 |
| Creators | Halak Mehta (8815217) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/DESIGN_OF_COMPLEMENTARY_EXPERIMENTS_FOR_ESTIMATION_OF_TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT_THERMAL_PROPERTIES/12272189 |
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