A computational fluid dynamic model of the heat and moisture transfer during beef chilling

The unsteady heat and mass transfer process during beef carcass chilling was modelled for a three-dimensional beef carcass geometry. A three-step method was used to simulate the simultaneous heat and mass transfer process in order to reduce the computational time. In the first step, a steady state simulation of the flow field was conducted. In the second step, the local heat and mass transfer coefficients were calculated. Finally, the third step consists of the simultaneous heat and mass transfer process simulation on the meat carcass only. A separate 1-D grid was used to calculate the moisture diffusion in the meat. The simulation of a 20-h chilling run takes 5 days on a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4 computer. The model allows calculating and predicting the heat load, temperatures, weight loss and water activity. Local variations in the heat and mass transfer coefficients, temperature and water activity were found around the beef carcass. The CFD model gives temperature predictions that agree with experimental data better than any previous model. The weight loss tends to be over-predicted probably due to neglecting the resistance caused by the fat cover.