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Portable forced-air tunnel evaluation for cooling products inside cold storage rooms
nior D.F. Barbin*, L.C. Neves Filho, V. Silveira Ju
Department of Food Engineering, University of Campinas, Rua Monteiro Lobato 80, CEP: 13083-862 Campinas, SP, Brazil

article info
Article history: Received 28 July 2009 Received in revised form 19 August 2011 Accepted 22 August 2011 Available online 27 August 2011 Keywords: Frozen food Air distribution Refrigeration Freezing Heat transfer

abstract
Freezing process efciency is affected by the required conditions to keep the air ow and temperature at the product surface. The objective of this work was to obtain results on comparative studies with air exhaustion and blowing using an experimental portable forced-air freezing tunnel. The device was designed to improve cooling rates inside storage room without the need for a cooling/freezing tunnel. A heterogeneity factor was proposed for air circulation evaluation and compared with convective heat transfer coefcient (hef) values. Lower modules of heterogeneity factor values represent smaller temperature differences among samples. Comparing two different air ow processes, heterogeneity factor values were similar for regions where the cooling air could ow without obstructions. However, larger differences were observed for regions with hampered air circulation. Results indicated that the air distribution, as well as the heat transfer, occurs more uniformly around the products in the exhausting process than in the blowing system. 2011 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.

lation Evaluation dun tunnel de refroidissement et de conge ` linte rieur de chambres pour le refroidissement de produits a es pour lentreposage froides utilise
s : Produit alimentaire congele ; Distribution de lair ; Re frige ration ; Conge lation ; Transfert de chaleur Mots cle

1.

Introduction

Forced-air systems use cooling air to reduce products temperature based on the convection principle. Cooling air is circulated through the product, packed in boxes, in order to decrease freezing time (Brosnan and Sun, 2001; Thompson, 2004). This process may be used in batch or continuous processes. Fruit cooling and freezing and fruit pulp freezing

packed in polyethylene packages are among the main batch freezing process (Resende et al., 2002; Castro et al., 2003; n Sarria et al., 2006). Talbot and Fletcher (1996) showed Dussa the efciency of a forced-air cooling system compared to a cooling room for grapefruits. The results showed a reduction of 6.7  C in one hour and 14.6  C after 2.5 h, compared to 2  C and 3.5  C for one hour and 2.5 h, respectively, for the cooling room.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 55 19 3521 4095; fax: 55 19 3289 1513. E-mail address: dfbarbin@yahoo.com.br (D.F. Barbin). 0140-7007/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2011.08.008

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Nomenclature A cp cpm cpAl hef kAl m mi mt n Q S2 t heat transfer surface area (m2) specic heat (J kg1 K1) metal body specic heat (J kg1 K1) aluminum specic heat (J kg1 K1) effective convective heat transfer coefcient (W m2  C1) aluminum thermal conductivity (W m1  C1) mass (kg) product innitesimal mass (kg) sample total mass (kg) number of results obtained (dimensionless) total heat (J) linear regression line inclination ( C s1) time (h)

Tb Ti TN Tc Tmax Tmin Tref V Vi

product temperature ( C) initial temperature ( C) chilling medium temperature ( C) product average representative temperature in a layer ( C) maximum temperature ( C) minimum temperature ( C) reference temperature ( C) volume (m3) Vi number (dimensionless)

Greek letters metal density (kg m3) rm aluminum density (kg m3) rAl 4 heterogeneity factor (dimensionless)

Model systems are commonly used to simulate food stuff in processing techniques because of its homogeneity and ease of batch reproducibility. Such characteristics could not be ensured with real foodstuffs, which have a great variability in structure, texture and composition (Woinet et al., 1998; Chevalier et al., 2000). Resende et al. (2002) and Berto et al. (2003) used a sucrose solution system to observe freezing process in forced-air room and thermal processing, respectively. According to the authors, the solution is profitable for pulp simulation with low changes in repeated processes. Convection heat transfer is related to the amount of energy transferred from the product surface when it is in contact with n Sarria et al. the refrigerating uid (Welty et al., 2000). Dussa (2006) studied the inuence of the air velocity in a cooling tunnel. According to the authors, air velocities greater than 2.0 m s1 did not affect the convective coefcients (hef), as results obtained were not greater than 23.8 W m2  C1. Dincer (1995) determined the experimental heat transfer coefcient with data obtained during forced-air cooling, with results varying from 21.1 to 32.1 W m2  C1 for air velocities of 1.1e2.5 m s1. Mohsenin (1980) obtained hef values in the range of 20e35 W m2  C1 for air forced systems with air velocity from 1.5 to 5.0 m s1. Experiments carried out in a forced-air room with air velocities in the range of 1e2 m s1 resulted in hef values varying from 28 W m2  C1 up to 52 W m2  C1 for cylindrical products (cucumber) during cooling (Dincer and Genceli, 1994). Le Blanc et al. (1990a,b), Resende et al. (2002) and Barbin et al. (2010) reported experiments for determination of hef using the product cooling temperature curves approach. In this method, a metallic aluminum body with high thermal conductivity is used to minimize the temperature gradient formed during the heat transfer process between the product and the cooling medium. The heat transfer rate in a determined control volume is given by equation (1): dQ hef ATb TN dt (1)

heat transfer area (m2); Tb is the product temperature ( C) and TN is the air temperature ( C). Energy variation in a metallic body with constant properties is given by equation (2): dQ dT rm Vcpm dt dt (2)

Combining equations (1) and (2), then integrating and adopting the initial contour condition T(t0) Ti, leads to the equation for time dependent temperature variation:
hef At Tb TN erm cpm V Ti TN

(3)

Equation (4) can describe the fast cooling process, which is a simplication of Equation (3): Tb TN eS2 $t Ti TN

(4)

where Q is the energy amount (J) drawn back per time t (s); hef is the effective heat transfer coefcient (W m2  C1); A is the

where Ti is the initial temperature of the metallic body and TN is the cooling air average temperature, measured by the thermocouples inside the cooling room. Parameter S2 represents the cooling coefcient, a simplication from equation (3). Vigneault et al. (2004) proposed a new calculation method for air distribution in recipients during forced-air cooling process. Moreover, the authors developed a dimensionless number to compare air velocity distribution heterogeneity owing through a porous medium, called the Vi number. This was dened as the rate of the standard deviation and the average of the air velocity owing through a mass of product inside a recipient. Experiments were carried out with spherical samples inside a forced-air circulation tunnel. Some authors have studied the air temperature conditions n Sarria inside forced-air tunnels (Thompson, 2004; Dussa et al., 2006). The portability of the device was not reported before. The objective of this work was to present a new mathematical approach for the evaluation of a portable forced-air tunnel built to enhance the freezing process of packed products stored in commercial boxes inside a storage room. The described device could be adopted to avoid extra expenses

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with new equipment such as freezing tunnels. Heat transfer coefcients were used for an indirect analysis of the air distribution inside the equipment and comparison of temperature variation among samples considering the location between layers of boxes. A new method for the quantitative evaluation of the temperature variation for different positions in the system was proposed.

2.
2.1.

Material and methods

System experimental design

Model system with 15% (weight/weight of solution) of sucrose and 0.5% (weight/weight of solution) of carboxy methyl cellulose (Carbocel AM, Arinos, SP, Brazil) was packed in polyethylene bags (0.1 kg) with similar dimensions (0.095 m 0.07 m 0.015 m) to pulp fruit products in the market. The bags were stored in 35 plastic boxes (Fig. 1), with external dimensions of 0.6 m 0.4 m 0.12 m and kept inside the freezing room. The boxes had an opening area of 21% of the total area, more than the minimum values recommended for a good air ow (Castro et al., 2003), and were stacked over a 1.00 1.20 m commercial pallet in seven layers, with ve boxes each. Each box contained 8.6 kg of product in eightyfour plastic bags. The projected freezing system was built as described in Barbin et al. (2009), with a plastic cover connected to an aluminum exible duct and a fan that blows or exhausts the air. The plastic covers the boxes that contain the product, stacked on a commercial pallet. The portable tunnel fan used has axial airscrews with a tri-phase induction engine (Weg, Brazil, model 71586 and 0.5 hp). The whole device was placed inside a freezing storage room (Recrusul, Brazil), with internal dimensions of 3 m 3 m 2.3 m (20.7 m3) and walls made of 0.01 m aluminum panels lled with expanded polyurethane as insulation. The cooling process consists in circulating the air from inside of the storage room through the open spaces in the boxes and around the product. In an exhaustion process, the air ows from the lower part of the system to inside the boxes and through the fan back to the room. In the blowing process, the air ow is changed, blowing the cooling air from the room directly to the product. The forced-air circulation is vertically oriented

in both the exhaustion and the blowing process. During exhaustion, it goes from the bottom to the top of the pallet; while in the blowing process, it goes from top to bottom (Fig. 2). A freezing process without the portable tunnel was carried out as a reference test to be compared to the experiments using the tunnel device. This reference freezing process consisted in leaving the boxes inside the cold room until all of the samples reached the nal freezing temperature. Blowing (B) and exhausting (E) air tests were run in triplicate. Mixed experiments with both air circulation directions were tested with each orientation during half of the process length. Two types of these experiments were made, one started with the blowing process, and then changed to exhaustion after approximately 24 h (BeE), and another started with exhaustion and changed to blowing (EeB). The velocity of the cooling air was measured for comparison with the convective coefcients and heterogeneity factors obtained. Results for the air velocity are presented in Barbin et al. (2009). Sample temperatures were monitored using type T thermocouples (coppereconstantan), acquired by a monitoring system composed of an automatic channel selector system model Scanner 706 (Keithley Instruments Inc., OH, USA).

2.2.

Convective heat transfer calculation

Convective heat transfer was obtained using temperature measurements of 5 identied (T1 to T5) aluminum test bodies (with dimensions of 0.1 m 0.07 m 0.025 m), distributed in layers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7, respectively, including both the extreme layers (1 and 7) and the central layers (3, 4 and 5) (Barbin et al., 2010). All the aluminum test bodies were positioned over the samples in the center of the boxes along with the thermocouples identied with number 5 as last algorism (15, 35, 45, 55 and 75, Fig. 3) and in contact with the cooling air (Fig. 4b). The second layer did not have a test body, but it had a temperature measurement (thermocouple 25). The sixth layer was not monitored with a test body neither thermocouples. Two other thermocouples were distributed inside the room for air circulation temperature monitoring: one in the evaporator blowing air and one to evaluate the evaporator returning air, to measure the temperature variation in these points during the process. The test body is an aluminum plate with similar size to the samples. Thermocouples were inserted inside holes in the body tests that were lled with thermal paste to avoid bubbles which could interfere in the temperature measurement. Polystyrene was used as insulation around the test body to keep only one surface exposed in contact with the cooling air (Fig. 4a). This procedure was adopted to analyze onedimension heat ow and avoid edge effects. Aluminum thermo physical properties (as a metallic test body) used for the determination of the convective heat transfer coefcients are shown in Table 1. After obtaining S2 values (according to equation (4)), the effective heat transfer coefcients were calculated for the samples in the sensible heat loss phase, as shown in Equation (5): hef rAl VCpAl S2 A (5)

Fig. 1 e Plastic box for freezing products.

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Fig. 2 e Plastic boxes stacked on a commercial transport pallet covered with plastic, and fan orientation during the exhaustion and blowing processes.

Fig. 3 e Thermocouples and test body positioning and identication used in the system with seven layers.

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Fig. 4 e Aluminum test body insulation (a) and positioning inside the box (b).

2.3.

Heterogeneity factor

Tc

P mi Ti mt

(8)

The freezing process was monitored until the center of the samples reached 18  C. A method was developed for determination of the temperature distribution inside the pallet. The objective was to evaluate temperature heterogeneity in different pallet positions during the freezing process. This parameter was obtained from the heat transfer between the product (model system) and the cooling air (Equation (6)): Q mcp DT (6)

The temperature difference between the representative average temperature and the minimum and maximum product temperatures during the freezing process was calculated using Tc values obtained. The temperature variation in each monitored point in the layer is obtained using Equation (9): DTc Tc Tmin or DTc Tc Tmax (9)

where Q is product energy (J), m is product mass (kg), cp is product specic heat (J kg1  C1), and DT is the temperature difference between the samples (model system) and a temperature reference (Tref,  C). If the whole mass of product in the pallet is reduced as much as possible (to innite small parts), the total energy of the pallet is equivalent to the sum of all parts of the energy of the products. Equation (7) represents this calculation: Z mt cp Tc mi cp Tx;y;z dV Z dV (7)

A dimensionless factor was suggested to evaluate the temperature variation compared to the average temperature, aiming to quantify the cooling performance obtained by different air circulation processes through the product using Tc and DTc values calculated. This factor was an extension of the Vi number proposed by Vigneault et al. (2004), who worked with the air ow around samples. In this work the heterogeneity factor was dened as the rate between the square root of the second potency sum of the DTc values and the number of monitored samples (n), divided by the Tc values obtained during the freezing process (Equation (10)): s P DTc 2 n 4 Tc

(10)

where mt is the total mass of the product on the pallet or in a layer, Tc is the product average temperature for the respective amount of product (layer or whole pallet), mi is the local mass of an innitesimal part of the product, T(x,y,z) Ti Tref is the temperature of this mass and Tref is equal to 0  C. The product average representative temperature in a layer at a certain moment is shown in Equation (8):

Table 1 e Aluminum thermo physical properties at 20  C (Welty et al., 2000). Density, rAl (kg m3)
2701.1

Specic heat, CpAl (J kg1  C1)

938.3

Thermal conductivity, kAl (W m1  C1)

229

Minimum heterogeneity factor value is 0 (zero), which represents a perfect temperature distribution inside the system, with no temperature difference between samples. Greater module of 4 values means bigger differences between the considered monitored samples. The heterogeneity factor was obtained for three layers (upper, central and lower) in the system, for each conformation of air direction. In each of these calculations, n is equal to 5 monitored points in each layer, representing the heterogeneity of temperature distribution in different positions of the respective layer. Later, it was obtained for the whole pallet, where n is equal to 15 monitored samples. In this case, it represented the heterogeneity of temperature distribution between layers in the pallet.

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3.
3.1.

Results
Convective heat transfer

The average dimensionless temperature [(T TN).(Ti TN)] neperian logarithm versus cooling time graphs for every test body monitored were plotted. Based on these graphs, the angular coefcient (S2) and linear coefcient (A) for the y A eS2 x equation were obtained. Angular coefcient values were used to obtain the hef values previously reported (Barbin et al., 2010). The authors have shown that every hef value was larger for the process with the tunnel for both the exhaustion and blowing processes, compared to the reference. In addition, the exhaustion process resulted in greater values for the local effective heat transfer coefcients at the product surface and also a more homogeneous distribution at the lower layer of boxes inside the pallet. The large value obtained for the upper layer could indicate that the air ow causes a rapid temperature reduction of the samples located at that position, which could be related to the fact that cooling air had a great velocity at that point for the blowing process (Barbin et al., 2009). It was reported air velocities over 15 m s1 in certain areas for the insufation process, while the exhaustion process had air velocity values around 3 m s1 (Barbin et al., 2009; Barbin and Silveira Jr., 2011). The same trend was observed by Resende et al. (2002), with greater convection transfer coefcient for samples in direct contact with the circulating forced air. According to the authors, the amount of product to be cooled is an obstacle for the cooling air ow when it is driven directly toward the product. In the blowing process, the air ows directly into the device and in contact with the upper layer. This rst layer of samples may affect the air ow, leading to the high convective coefcient obtained for the region that is in direct contact with the incoming cooling air, and the smaller values for the lower layers.

The results for the blowing and exhausting tests made in triplicate were evaluated with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. Different letters mean signicantly different values ( p < 0.05) for rows or columns. Values did not differ for the upper level, where the circulation of air had fewer obstacles. However, the differences were greater for the central and lower layers. Module values obtained for 4 topped 0.12 in the central layer, and 0.14 in the inferior layer for the blowing processes, while for the exhaustion processes these values were not greater than 0.06. The reference test without the forced-air equipment had 4 module values up to 0.21 for the central layer, where the air ow is reduced. This fact also occurred when analyzing the layers compared to the whole pallet. The 4 value was greater for the blowing process (0.09) than for exhausting process, which was 0.02. This shows that the temperature distribution between layers was more uniform for the exhausting process, compared to the blowing process. Reference tests showed heterogeneity not statistically different ( p < 0.05) compared to the blowing process for the lower layer, therefore central and upper layers showed values of 0.21 and 0.10, respectively, which were greater compared to both forced-air process (0.05). Analyzing the whole pallet, the heterogeneity value for the reference test was 0.18, which is greater than the results obtained with the tunnel. The value of 0.02 obtained for the exhaustion process is statistically different than the result obtained to the blowing process (0.09), and very close to 0 (zero), showing a homogeneous temperature distribution inside the device and around the samples. The mixed tests showed similar results among them, and intermediary between the exhausting and blowing processes. However, the mixed test which started with the blowing process showed a greater 4 value (0.10) than the mix test started by the exhausting air, for the whole pallet (0.04).

4.
3.2. Heterogeneity factor
The heterogeneity factor 4 was calculated for each test and is shown in Table 2.

Conclusion

Table 2 e Heterogeneity coefcient values (4) for temperature distribution characterization for samples in layers and layers in pallet. Tests Heterogeneity factor (4)* Lower layer
Reference Exhaustion Average AD Average AD 0.12BC 0.06A 0.01 0.14C 0.01 0.09B 0.08AB

Central layer
0.21D 0.05A 0.01 0.12BC 0.02 0.09B 0.09B

Upper layer
0.10B 0.05A 0.01 0.05A 0.01 0.02A 0.05A

Pallet
0.18D 0.02A 0.01 0.09B 0.01 0.04A 0.10B

Blowing Mixed (EeB) Mixed (BeE)

AD e average deviation. *Different letters means statistically difference ( p < 0.05).

The main difference between air ow processes is the temperature variation at different positions throughout the system, as the heterogeneity coefcient proposed showed signicant differences ( p < 0.05) for central and lower layers of the system. These differences are greater for the blowing process, what may lead to technological problems such as the freezing time overestimation, causing unnecessary costs, or underestimation, when the process could be considered nished with samples above freezing temperature affecting the nal quality of the product. Using the tunnel was a viable option when compared to the freezing process in a room without the portable tunnel forced air as it reduces sample cooling and freezing time in the storage room. Exhausting the air has a better performance considering the cold room capacity as it drives the cooling air through every sample in every layer equally, reducing processing time and easing system monitoring, as it is allowed to assume that all samples are at the same temperature in unsteady state. The use of the portable tunnel was useful to reduce freezing time, as it allows a more homogeneous air circulation surrounding the samples in the exhausting process resulting

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in more homogeneous temperature distribution in the system. The currently proposed heterogeneity factor could help in clarifying the cooling process during forced-air heat transfer, once it is related to the temperature variation within the system. More studies could be made regarding the system energy consumption and comparing the use of the forced-air tunnel to analyze the time reduction and the energy demand during its operation.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge Coordenac a o de Aperfeic oamento de Pessoal de N vel Superior (CAPES) for the nancial support.

references

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