Avaliação do processo de congelamento em tunel portatil com convecção forçada por exaustão e insuflação. / Freezing process evaluation using a portable forced air tunnel with air evacuation and air blowing in pallets.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The conditions necessary to keep the air temperature and movement at the product surface will determine the freezing process efficiency. Since the energy level could implement on the final cost, the reduction of the freezing process time was a major goal in the whole experiment. Food products are predominantly frozen in air blast freezing tunnels. Therefore, exhausting air is preferable than blowing it through, since it minimizes air short-circuiting and results in more uniform cooling. To produce an homogeneous refrigeration, the main configuration to be determined for pallets storing plastic packages in boxes are the package distribution and air orientation. The main components of an exhausting forced-air tunnel are a fan that causes the equipment inside air evacuation creating a low pressure region. The product is arranged on this spot creating uniform distribution of the cold air inside the equipment, around the product. Therefore, the objective of this work is to build an experimental portable forced-air freezing tunnel, and work on comparative studies with air exhausting and blowing. The tunnel was built and placed inside a freezing product storage chamber, and the objective was to improve the air circulation and the thermal distribution between the product and cold air, for a sample batch left inside the chamber. The batch was monitored using thermocouples for freezing variation and system efficiency graphic determination. It was also provided the heat transfer analysis, comparing the exhausting and blowing process, and the heat transfer coefficients of the cold air and the product as well as the air distribution around the product. The results have shown reduction of the freezing time of the samples when the portable tunnel was used comparing without the tunnel tests (reference). The air evacuation process reduced up to four hours with comparison to the blowing system the freezing process. Convective coefficient results were higher for air evacuation than air blowing in every part of the batch, except for the upper layer of products were the cold air of the chamber was directly in contact with the product. These results, with the temperature analysis obtained, indicated that the air distribution occurs more uniformly around the products in the exhausting process than blowing system, as well as the heat transfer.

ASSUNTO(S)

cold storage convecção forçada forced convection refrigeration refrigeração frozen foods congelamento de alimentos camaras frigorificas

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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