Dynamic Modelling and Simulation of Liquid Food Process Lines

Abstract: In the present work a dynamic model library of components for process lines was developed. The analysis addressed characteristic aspects of liquid food process lines, and new models were developed for fluid transitions, dispersion, mixing zones and first-order chemical reactions in pipes and heat exchangers. The computational efficiency and accuracy of the models were analysed. It was demonstrated that classical models of fluid propagation in process lines could be combined with modern numerical methods to obtain computationally efficient dynamic models for the simulation of dispersed convective flow, with and without chemical reactions.

In particular it was demonstrated that a transport delay model was well suited for the simulation of thermal transients due to fluid transitions in heat exchangers. It was shown that the model could be extended to account for dispersion with a method that, although classical in approach, enables a certain freedom in the choice of degree of discretization depending on the demand for accuracy vs. computational speed. Further extension of the model with first-order chemical reactions to account for microbial deactivation was demonstrated.

The usefulness of the dispersed-convection model to predict the extent of mixing zones and the amount of product rejects in continuous processing was demonstrated. The relevance concerning product traceability is discussed and the concept ?fuzzy traceability? introduced.