Modelling three conventional cooling processes of cooked meat by finite element method

The finite element method is used to analyse the two-dimensional transient heat transfer problem for cooling cooked meats with an ellipsoid shape under different environments offered by slow air, air blast and water immersion cooling units. The variations in physical properties of the cooked meat and in operating conditions during the cooling processes are included in the model. The models are solved by a user-friendly computer program developed by the authors. The numerical solutions are compared with the experimental results. The comparison shows that the maximum deviation between the predicted and experimental core temperatures for all the cooling processes is within 2.9°C.