Advanced Computational Approaches for Drying in Food Processing

Computational methods have become important techniques for drying in food processing. There are two principle computational approaches for system analysis: continuous and discrete. In the continuous approach, the governing equations can be obtained by applying the fundamental laws such as conservation of mass, momentum and energy over an infinitesimal control volume. These equations are further discretized by using a suitable discretization technique. The recovered set of algebraic equations are then solved by an applied numerical method. The discrete approach concentrates on mimicking the molecular movement within system. Recent years have witnessed a rapid development in the field of computational techniques owing to its abundant benefit to the food processing industry. The relevance of advanced computational methods has helped in understanding the fundamental physics of thermal and hydrodynamics behavior that can provide benefits to the food processing industry in numerous applications such as drying, evaporation, sterilization, mixing and refrigeration.