PREDICTING INTERNAL TEMPERATURE RESPONSE TO CONDUCTION-HEATING OF ODD-SHAPED SOLIDS

Heat penetration experiments were carried out in a hot water bath with small blocks of a solid polycarbonate material cut into various shapes (cylinder, cube and oval) to obtain heat penetration factors for each shape. These factors, along with characteristic dimensions from the odd shapes were then used in the finite cylinder heat transfer model to predict accurately the temperature at the center of each block in response to measured dynamic bath temperatures. Results showed sufficiently good agreement between predicted and measured center temperature profiles to justify use of the finite cylinder model for rapid evaluation of process deviations in thermal processing of foods in odd-shaped containers.