EFFECT OF LIQUID VISCOSITY ON THE TEMPERATURE EVOLUTION DURING AXIAL ROTATION OF TOROIDAL CANS: A COMPUTATIONAL FORCE ANALYSIS

Caning has been the effective thermal processing of food products to increase shelf life of food products. Following the retort applications, the agitation mechanism systems were introduced to increase the heat transfer rate in convection heated samples and to improve the quality with energy efficience, and the traditional cylindrical geometry cans have been used. However, it was demonstrated that the physical properties of the liquid samples, especially the viscosity showed a significant effect on the evolved heat transfer with respect to the increased agitation rates while high viscous samples might show a negative effect. Therefore, the objective of this study to determine the effect of liquid viscosity on the temperature evolution during axial rotation of toroidal cans with a computational approach and detailed force (Coriolis, centrifugal and gravitational) analysis. A previously developed and experimentally validated mathematical was used for this purpose, and the results of this study demonstrated a significant combined effect of the evolved Coriolis, centrifugal and gravitational forces on the temperature evolution and its uniformity during an axial rotation process of the toroidal cans.