Mathematical model analysis of fluid flow in edamame hydrofluidization using finite element method

Abstract

Edamame, also called as vegetable soybean is a major agricultural commodity export in international scale. The market demand for edamame has begun to increase for recent decades. Therefore, it was necessary to pay attention to its freezing process in order to produce frozen edamame with worldwide superior quality. One of the freezing processes called Hydrofluidization. It uses the circulation system by pumping the coolant upward through the orifice plate into the cooling vessel. This research was intended to examine the mathematical model of fluid flow on edamame hydrofluidization. This mathematical model was solved using finite element method with quadratic approach and simulated with MATLAB and FLUENT software. The problem of the research to be examined was the initial fluid velocity and the diameter of the orifice plate. It was found that the bigger of the orifice plate, the lower of the fluid velocity in edamame hydrofluidization was. However, the higher of the initial fluid velocity that given, the higher of the fluid velocity in edamame hydrofluidization was. Based on the result of MATLAB simulation, with the size of the diameter of orifice plate about 0.01 m, the fluid velocity is descreased to 0.5019 m/s. While at the diameter of orifice plateabout 0.02 m and 0.03 m is descreased to0.6347 m/s and 0.6593 m/s.