Food thermal distribution-based control of industrial freezers
Résumé
Today, there is a need to propose advanced-controls of freezer based on multi-criteria decisions (energy and quality). One of the challenges is to propose a reliable non-intrusive method to measure temperature and ice distribution of food at the freezer exit. This paper proposes an assessment of an innovative characterization method based on the analysis of thermal response of food material when a pulsed heat flux is applied on one or two faces of the exiting product. In addition to quality assessment of the final product, temperature profile provides a valuable information on freezer operation. Numerical simulations will be performed to assess quality impacts of freezing parameters or/and initial conditions on thermal responses. Experiments using a batch freezer and tylose gel as food model will be done in order to validate the numerical results.