Modeling of microwave heating of mashed potato with temperature dependent thermal and dielectric properties

Microwave processed foods are becoming increasingly popular in the market. There is a definite need to develop a method based on rational principles that will allow researchers to analyze the heat and mass transfer and to locate hot and cold spots during microwave heating. In order to analyze the temperature distribution in a sample processed by microwave heating, a mathematical method was developed to solve the unsteady state two-dimensional heat transfer equation in varius geometry. The Lambert’s law was used to model the heat generation of microwave heating. The numerical solution was developed using an implicit finite difference method in transient two dimensional systems to predict temperature profile in the potato samples. In this study, thermal and electromagnetic properties were considered temperature dependent whicd led to a non-linear partial differential equation. Influnce of sample size and processing time on the temperature profile and location of hot and cold spots were evaluted. Finally, the porposed model was validated with published exprimental data and other mathematical models.