Estimating Heat Transfer Coefficients in Liquid/Particulate Canned Foods using Only Liquid Temperature Data

A mathematical procedure was developed to estimate heat transfer coefficients for heated rotating cans of food comprised of a liquid and spherical particles. The method uses experimental data for only the fluid temperature, and heat transfer coefficients are obtained by comparing predicted with experimental fluid temperature data in the Laplace transform plane. Results obtained using the procedure were compared with experimentally obtained heat transfer coefficients from the literature for three cases: potato spheres in deionized water, Teflon spheres in deionized water, and aluminum spheres in silicone fluid. Agreement between predicted and experimental results depended upon the agreement of the experimental conditions and the assumptions associated with the model.