Using Computational Fluid Dynamics and Numerical Simulations to Analyze the Temperature and Flow of Liquid in a Can during Sterilization

There is a big growing in the last two decades in using of mathematical modeling to analyze and predict the temperature distribution in the processing engineering. In this work, transient temperature and flow pattern profiles during natural convection heating of viscous liquid were simulated and predicted. The partial differential equations of energy, continuity and momentum were solved numerically for 2D case using a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package (PHOENICS) version 3.5. All the physical properties of the liquid food used are assumed constant except for viscosity (temperature dependent) and density (Boussinesq approximation). Saturated steam at 121oC was used as a heating medium. The measured temperature at the geometric center of the can was compared with that predicted numerically. The simulations show clearly the effect of the natural convection on the flow pattern as well as on the movement of the Slowest Heating Zone (SHZ).