Comparison between analytical and numerical solution of mathematical drying model

Abstract

Drying is often related to the food industry as a process of shifting heat and mass inside food, which helps in preserving food. Previous research using a mass transfer equation showed that the results were mostly concerned with the comparison between the simulation model and the experimental data. In this paper, the finite difference method was used to solve a mass equation during drying using different kinds of boundary condition, which are equilibrium and convective boundary conditions. The results of these two models provide a comparison between the analytical and the numerical solution. The result shows a close match between the two solution curves. It is concluded that the two proposed models produce an accurate solution to describe the moisture distribution content during the drying process. This analysis indicates that we have confidence in the behaviour of moisture in the numerical simulation. This result demonstrated that a combined analytical and numerical approach prove that the system is behaving physically. Based on this assumption, the model of mass transfer was extended to include the temperature transfer, and the result shows a similar trend to those presented in the simpler case.