Simultaneous heat and mass transfer inside a heated cavity with a moisture source

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.

In many engineering problems, momentum, energy and mass transport take place together and these equations must be analyzed simultaneously. Especially in food industry, the most important step of processes like cooking, drying, smoking is the simultaneous heat and mass transfer. During these processes, significant changes in physical, chemical and nutritional properties of food occur. Most of these changes are functions of temperature, humidity and time. In cavities with moisture sources, investigating simultaneous heat and mass transfer is important to reveal the behavior of the system. In this study, an experimental and numerical investigation was carried out on the simultaneous heat and mass transfer inside a heated cavity which has a moisture source in it. For analyzing simultaneous heat and mass transfer, a model of a heated cavity having a porous mass source (brick) was established. For analysis studies, commercial FLUENT® software which solves basic momentum, energy and mass transport equations is used. In order to express the vaporization of the water in the brick, an external code is written. Within the scope of experimental studies, a cavity which had a water soaked brick within was used. The brick was heated by hot air which was forwarded into cavity. During the tests, the temperature change in the cavity and brick were recorded. In order to express the mass loss of the brick, the mass change of the brick was also recorded. The boundary values which are needed in the modeling studies were determined experimentally. The results of the analysis studies implemented were compared with the experimental results and good agreement was observed for the temperature of the brick and the mass loss of the brick.