Using computer simulation and computational fluid dynamics in analysis of temperature distribution in thermal sterilization process

Abstract

There is a large growing in the last years in using of mathematical modeling to analyze and predict the temperature distribution in the processing engineering. In this work, the analysis of temperature distribution during the sterilization of two liquid models in two dimensional cans was presented using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The partial differential equations of continuity, energy, and momentum were solved numerically using a CFD software package (PHOENICS) version 3.5, which is based on finite volume method of analysis (FVM). All the physical properties of the liquid food used in this study were assumed constant except those for viscosity and density. The results of the simulations were presented in the form of transient temperature. The simulations show clearly the profile of temperature distribution during the whole process, the shapes and movement of the Slowest Heating Area (SHA), and the formation of the secondary flow..