Simulation of heat transfer processes applied to the food industry with focus on meat products

Abstract

The objective of this article is the study of heat transfer processes in meat products. The adopted methodology was the fractionation of the meat, the construction of a mesh equally spaced in the x and y coordinates and the temperature measurement in the nodal regions at different time intervals. From the temperature calculated at time zero, it is possible to predict the temperatures at the other times, using the explicit finite difference method and, thus, it was possible to compare the results obtained with the experimental temperatures. The differences found between experimental and calculated values were of the range of eighty percent, a distortion that can be justified by errors associated with the experiment. In addition, by measuring the central temperatures, it is possible study the cooking of the meat and classify them as underdone, to the point or well-done. It was concluded that the experiment was successful in the study of the finite difference method as well as in the analysis of the importance of heat transfer processes in the food industry.