| Measurement of thermal and dielectric properties of sugar cube to simulate temperature distribution in microwave drying process |
| Paper ID : 1396-NICAME1402 |
| Authors: |
|
AMIN Hazervazifeh * Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystems, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran. |
| Abstract: |
| Dehydration is the last operation in a sugar cube production line which is commonly performed by using hot air flow. Due to the drawbacks in hot air method and the advantages of microwave energy in dehydration process, this study aims to simulate the dehydration of sugar cubes by microwave in power of 880 W, frequency of 2.45 GHz, and four pulsing ratios of 1.5, 2.5, 4.5, and 10 with combination of Maxwell's electromagnetic equations and Fourier heat transfer law in Comsol Multiphysics; and the required data for simulation, i.e., bulk density, dielectric properties of sugar, specific heat capacity, and heat transfer coefficient is measured by conducting experiments. The simulation results conferred that cube corners have the highest temperature values. Additionally, the corner exposed to the magnetron lamp benefits the highest temperature rise. In pulsing ratios of 1.5, 2.5, 4.5 and 10, the difference between the highest and lowest temperature inside the product was 64.32℃, 15.91℃, 4.7℃ and 0.26℃, respectively, which shows that by increasing the pulsing ratio, the temperature distribution in the product becomes more uniform. |
| Keywords: |
| Sugar cube, dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor, Thermal conductivity coefficient, specific heat capacity, Microwave dryer |
| Status : Paper Accepted (Poster Presentation) |
