Food Freezing and Thawing Calculations

Freezing time and freezing heat load are the two most importantnbsp;factors determining the economics of food freezers. Thisnbsp;Brief willnbsp;review and describe the principal methods available for theirnbsp;calculation. The methods can be classified into analytical methods,nbsp;which rely on making physical simplifications to be able to derivenbsp;exact solutions; empirical methods, which use regression techniques to derive simplified equations from experimental data or...
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Freezing time and freezing heat load are the two most importantnbsp;factors determining the economics of food freezers. Thisnbsp;Brief willnbsp;review and describe the principal methods available for theirnbsp;calculation. The methods can be classified into analytical methods,nbsp;which rely on making physical simplifications to be able to derivenbsp;exact solutions; empirical methods, which use regression techniques to derive simplified equations from experimental data or numericalnbsp;calculations and numerical methods, which use computationalnbsp;techniques such as finite elements analysis to solve the complete setnbsp; of equations describing the physical process. Thenbsp;Brief willnbsp;evaluate the methods against experimental data and develop guidelinesnbsp;on the choice of method. Whatever technique is used, the accuracy ofnbsp;the results depends crucially on the input parameters such as the heat transfer coefficient and the product's thermal properties.nbsp;In addition, thenbsp;estimation methods and data for these parameters will be reviewed andnbsp;their impacts on the calculations will be evaluated. Freezing is oftennbsp;accompanied by mass transfer (moisture loss, solute absorption),nbsp;super cooling and nucleation and may take place under high pressurenbsp;conditions; therefore methods to take these phenomena into accountnbsp;will also be reviewed.