Theoretical simulation of vacuum cooling of spherical foods

A model has been developed for predicting the temporal temperature and mass of spherical solid foods during vacuum cooling. This paper discusses the effects of product thermophysical properties, convection heat transfer coefficient, latent heat of evaporation as well as vacuum environmental parameters that govern the heat and mass transfer of product. The temporal trends of total system pressure, product temperature such as surface temperature, centre temperature, mass-average temperature, the mass of product were predicted. The model accounts for the change of temperature of solid product systematically during vacuum cooling by means of simulation. This paper also compares the results of the computer algorithm with experimental results taken from published literature.