Evaluation of Boundary Conditions for CFD Simulation of Liquid Food Thermal Process in Glass Bottles

The growing demand for safer and high-quality food products creates the need for better knowledge of the processes involved in food production. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have been widely used to better understand food thermal process, one of the safest and most frequently used methods for food preservation. However, no consistency in mathematical models has been observed, especially on the boundary conditions definition. The present study has evaluated four methodologies for the definition of boundary conditions for heating water in two commercial bottles: (M1) temperature profile of heating water (T infinity) and convective heat transfer coefficient (h), (M2) T infinity as boundary condition for the outside package wall, (M3) T infinity as boundary condition for the outside heated liquid edge, and (M4) internal temperature profile (T=T(x,y,z,t)), previously measured in the inner package wall, as boundary condition for the outside heated liquid edge. Models that considered the measured value of h e T infinity as boundary condition showed good agreement with experimental values, compared by thermal history and sterilization value (F). The models that considered the temperature profile of the heating water or the inner package wall as boundary conditions, showed faster heating. By over-estimating the product heating rate, those models are not appropriated for thermal process modelling, as it compromises the safety and preservation of food products.