Determinación del Coeficiente Convectivo de Transferencia de Calor del Proceso de Escaldado de Zapallo (Cucurbita maxima)

Abstract

The convective heat transfer coefficient of the blanching process of Curcuma maxima at different temperatures (70°C±1, 80°C±1 and 90°C±1) and duration of 320 seconds were determined. The temperature of the geometric center of triangular samples was measured using reference K-type thermocouples NIUSB-TC01 (National Instruments). The mathematical model was solved with the finite element method using the software COMSOLTM Multiphysics 3.5. To find the value of the convective heat transfer coefficient an optimization problem was solved by minimizing the relative average error, between the values of the experimental temperature and the simulated temperature of the geometric center. The results of the convective heat transfer coefficient were 390±17 W/m2°C to 70°C, 455±11 W/m2°C for 80°C and 535±13 W/m2°C to 90°C. In addition, the percentages of relative average error obtained are found below 5%, which indicates good accuracy of the mathematical model used.