Introduction to Food Engineering

Home Syllabus
Material Balances Energy Balances
Fluids Laminar and Turbulent Flow Volumetric Flow and Friction Bernoulli's Equation and Pump Power Flow Measurement
Thermodynamic Properties
Modes of heat transfer Conduction in walls Conduction in multilayered walls Convection heat transfer Forced Convection Free Convection Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient Heat Exchangers Unsteady State Heat Transfer Heisler Charts
Decimal Reduction Time F value General Method Improved General Method
Properties of Air and Water Vapor Psychrometric Chart
Moisture Content and Drying Rates Drying Time
Single Effect Evaporator Multiple Effect and Industrial Evaporators
Refrigerants Vapor Compression Refrigeration System Ideal and Non-Ideal Cycle
Ice Crystallization Freezing Time Freezer Selection
Instructions List of Experiments

Thermal Process Calculations - Improved General Method

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

  1. use Improved General Method to calculate process lethality
  2. describe the influence of retort temperature on lethality

This module involves thermal process calculations using the Improved General Method. We will also consider a virtual experiment to enhance your understanding of process calculations as conducted in the food industry. In the next video, you will learn how to use the Improved General Method in thermal process calculations. You will learn what improvements were made in this method compared with the original General method that you viewed in the last module. The steps used in this method are illustrated using a numerical example.

The following link to a virtual experiment is to gain further understanding of how to determine a thermal process. With this experiment, you will learn how to assess temperature history in a canned food subjected to different retort temperatures, calculate the F-value at the slowest heating point in the can, and examine the effect of varying retort temperatures on the F-values.

link to virtual experiment

Recap

In this module, you learned how to use the Improved General method for process calculations. You conducted a virtual experiment where you explored the effect of process operating conditions such as varying retort temperature on lethality of a process.