Finite Element Approach to Heat Conduction Problems during Precooling Fruits and Vegetables with Two-Layer Structure

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to show how to obtain each thermal diffusivity of the juice vesicles and the rind of fruits and vegetables as a shaddock with the thicker peeling, which is considered to be an axisymmetric body of arbitrary shape with two-layer structure. A two-layer model sphere and a shaddock were used in this work.
In result, primarily, the each conductivity of a two-layer model sphere was determined by means of hydro-cooling experiment of the model sphere and the trial and error method using finite element method. Secondarily, from the comparison of the solution of heat transfer by the trial and error method using finite element method and the curve of time temperature data in hydro-cooling of a shaddock, the thermal diffusivity of the juice vesicles and the rind of a shaddock were determined to be α₁=6.84×10^-4, α₂=4.44×10^-4m²/hr respectively.