Addis Ababa Science and Technology University

Lecture notes for Unit operation in food processing

Department: Food Science and Nutrition

By: Tayto Mindahun (MSc in Process Engineering)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
 Chapter 5
Heat transfer in food processing
 What is heat and heat transfer?
▪ Heat is the form of energy that can be transferred from one system to another as a result of
temperature difference. The science that deals with the determination of the rates of such energy
transfers is the heat transfer.
▪ The transfer of energy as heat is always from the higher-temperature medium to the lower-
temperature one, and heat transfer stops when the two mediums reach the same temperature.

▪ In the modern industrialized food industry, we commonly find unit operations such as refrigeration, freezing,
thermal sterilization, drying, and evaporation. These unit operations involve the transfer of heat between a
product and some heating or cooling medium.
▪ Heating and cooling of food products is necessary to prevent microbial and enzymatic degradation, to impart
desired sensorial properties like color, flavor, texture etc..
 Modes of heat transfer
▪ Heat can travel from one place to another in several ways. The three common
modes of heat transfer include:
▪ Conduction,
▪ Convection and
▪ Radiation
▪ Meanwhile, if the temperature difference exists between the two systems, heat will
find a way to transfer from the higher to the lower system.
Conduction heat transfer
 Principles of conduction
▪ Consider the conductive heat flow through the wall given in the figure below,
heat flows from the face of high temperature to the face of low temperature.
▪ The rate of heat transfer through the wall may be expressed as:
(𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚)(𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞)
𝐪𝐱 ∝
(𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬)

𝐀𝐝𝐓
▪ Or it can be expressed as: 𝐪𝐱 ∝ 𝐝𝐱
𝒅𝑻 (1)
▪ or, by inserting a constant of proportionality, 𝒒𝒙 = −𝒌𝑨 𝒅𝒙

▪ where qx is the rate of heat flow in the direction of heat transfer by conduction
(W); k is thermal conductivity (W/[m ℃]); A is area (normal to the direction of
heat transfer) through which heat flows (𝑚2 ); T is temperature (℃); and x is
length (m), a variable.
▪ Equation (1) is also called Fourier’s law for heat conduction.
 Example 1

One face of a stainless-steel plate 1 cm thick is maintained at 110℃, and the other face is
at 90℃ as shown in the figure below. Assuming steady-state conditions, calculate the
rate of heat transfer per unit area through the plate. The thermal conductivity of stainless
steel is 17 W/(m ℃).
 Classification of conductive heat transfer

▪ Heat transfer problems are often classified as:

▪ Steady (also called steady state) or

▪ Transient (also called unsteady) and
▪ Lumped systems
 Heat transfer problems classification

▪ Steady-state conditions imply that time has no influence

on the temperature distribution within an object, although
temperature may be different at different locations within
the object.
▪ Under unsteady-state conditions, the temperature changes
with location and time.

▪ In lumped heat transfer system, it involves change in temperature inside an object

with time but not with location, such as might occur during heating or cooling of a
small aluminum sphere, which has a high thermal conductivity.
 Conductive Heat Transfer in a Rectangular Slab
▪ Consider a slab of constant cross-sectional area, as shown in Figure given below. The temperature,
T1, on side X is known. We will develop an equation to determine temperature, T2, on the opposite
side Y and at any location inside the slab under steady-state conditions.

▪ To determine temperature, T, at any location, x, within the slab, we may replace T2 and x2 with unknown
T and distance variable x, respectively.
 Thermal Resistance Concept

▪ If we rearrange the terms in Equation (2), we obtain

▪ From Equations (3) and (4), thermal resistance may be expressed

as:
driving force
Resistance R = 5
quantity transfered

▪ In solving problems involving conductive heat transfer in a rectangular slab using this concept, we
first obtain thermal resistance using Equation (5) and then substitute it in Equation (4).
Example 2
▪ One face of a stainless-steel plate 1 cm thick is maintained at 110℃, and the other
face is at 90℃ as shown in the figure below. Assuming steady-state conditions,
calculate:
a) Thermal resistance,
b) The rate of heat transfer per unit area through the plate.
c) Determine the temperature at 0.5 cm from the 110℃ temperature face.

The thermal conductivity of stainless steel is 17 W/(m ℃).

 Conductive heat transfer through a tubular pipe
▪ Consider a long, hollow cylinder of inner radius ri, outer radius ro, and length L, as shown in Figure
below.
▪ Let the inside wall temperature be Ti and the outside wall temperature be To. We want to calculate
the rate of heat transfer along the radial direction in this pipe. Assume thermal conductivity of the
metal remains constant with temperature.
▪ Starting from Fourier’s law in cylindrical coordinates, the rate of heat
transfer in the radial direction(qr) and the thermal resistance in the
radial direction may be written as:

▪ The boundary conditions are:

 Example 3
▪ A 2-cm-thick steel pipe (thermal conductivity = 43 W/[m ℃]) with 6 cm inside diameter is
being used to convey steam from a boiler to process equipment for a distance of 40 m. The
inside pipe surface temperature is 115℃, and the outside pipe surface temperature is 90℃ as
shown in the figure below. Calculate the total heat loss to the surroundings under steady-state
conditions.
 Heat Conduction in Multilayered Systems
▪ We will now consider heat transfer through a composite wall made of several materials of different
thermal conductivities and thicknesses.
▪ An example is a wall of a cold storage, constructed of different layers of materials of different
insulating properties. All materials are arranged in series in the direction of heat transfer, as shown in
Figure shown below.
▪ We can rewrite Equation for heat transfer using thermal
resistance as:

▪ Using thermal resistance values for each layer, we can write:

Composite Rectangular Wall (in Series)

Example 4
▪ A cold storage wall (3 m x 6 m) is constructed of 15-cm-thick concrete (thermal conductivity =
1.37 W/[m ℃]). Insulation must be provided to maintain a heat transfer rate through the wall at or
below 500 W as shown in the figure below. If the thermal conductivity of the insulation is 0.04
W/(m ℃), compute the required thickness of the insulation. The outside surface temperature of the
wall is 38℃, and the inside wall temperature is 5℃.
 Composite Cylindrical Tube (in Series)
The Figure indicated below shows a composite cylindrical tube made of two layers of
materials, A and B. An example is a steel pipe covered with a layer of insulating
material. The rate of heat transfer in this composite tube can be calculated as follows.

▪ The rate of heat transfer through a composite cylinder using

thermal resistances of the two layers is:
▪
 Example 5
A stainless-steel pipe (thermal conductivity = 17 W/[m ℃]) is being used to convey heated oil as shown
in the figure below. The inside surface temperature is 130℃. The pipe is 2 cm thick with an inside
diameter of 8 cm. The pipe is insulated with 0.04-m-thick insulation (thermal conductivity = 0.035
W/[m ℃) The outer insulation temperature is 25℃. Calculate the temperature of the interface between
steel and insulation, assume steady-state conditions.
Convection
 Principles of convection
▪ Consider heat transfer from a heated flat plate, PQRS, exposed to a flowing fluid, as shown in Figure
below. The surface temperature of the plate is Ts, and the temperature of the fluid far away from the
plate surface is T∞.
▪ The rate of heat transfer from the solid surface to the flowing fluid is proportional to the surface
area of solid, A, in contact with the fluid, and the difference between the temperatures Ts and T∞. Or,

▪ Note that the convective heat transfer coefficient, h, is not a property of the solid material. It depends on a
number of properties of fluid (density, specific heat, viscosity, thermal conductivity), the velocity of fluid,
geometry, and roughness of the surface of the solid object in contact with the fluid.
▪
Example 6
▪ The rate of heat transfer per unit area from a metal plate is 1000 W/𝑚2 . The
surface temperature of the plate is 120℃, and ambient temperature is 20℃ as
shown in the figure below. Estimate the convective heat transfer coefficient.
 Estimation of Convective Heat-Transfer
Coefficient
❑Determination of the rate of heat transfer due to convection is complicated
because of the presence of fluid motion.
▪ The convective heat-transfer coefficient, h is predicted from empirical correlations.
▪ The coefficient is influenced by such parameters as:
▪ Type and velocity of the fluid,
▪ Physical properties of the fluid,
▪ Temperature difference, and
▪ Geometrical shape of the physical system under consideration.
❑ A drawback of the empirical approach is that it requires a large number of experiments to obtain the
required data.
 Estimation of Convective Heat-Transfer
Coefficient
A suggested methodology to solve problems requiring the calculation of convective heat transfer
coefficients using empirical correlations is as follows:

Step 1: Clearly identify the geometrical shape of the solid surface in contact with the fluid and its
dimensions. For example, is it a pipe, sphere, rectangular duct, or a rectangular plate? Is the fluid
flowing inside a pipe or over the outside surface?
Step 2: Identify the fluid and determine its properties. Determine the average fluid temperature far away from
the solid surface, T ∞
Step 3: Calculate the Reynolds number.
Step 4: Select an appropriate empirical correlation for calculating Nessult Number.
Step 5: Calculate the convective heat transfer coefficient
 Forced Convection
▪ In forced convection, a fluid is forced to move over a solid surface by external mechanical means,
such as an electric fan, pump, or a stirrer as shown in the figure below.
▪ The general correlation between the dimensionless numbers is:
NNu = Φ(NRe , Npr )

▪ To formulate this approach, first we will identify and review the required dimensionless
numbers: Reynolds number, 𝑁𝑅𝑒 , Nusselt number, 𝑁𝑁𝑢 , and Prandtl number, 𝑁𝑃𝑟.
Nusselt number
 Free Convection
▪ Free convection occurs because of density differences in fluids as they come into contact with a
heated surface as shown in the figure. The low density of fluid at a higher temperature causes
buoyancy forces, and as a result, heated fluid moves upward and colder fluid takes its place.

▪ Empirical expressions useful in predicting convective heat-transfer

coefficients are of the following form:

𝐡𝐝𝐜
𝐍𝐍𝐮 = = 𝐚(𝐍𝐑𝐚 )𝐦
𝐤
where a and m are constants; NRa, is the Rayleigh number. Rayleigh number is a product of two dimensionless
numbers, Grashof number and Prandtl number.

▪ A Grashof number is a ratio between the buoyancy forces and viscous forces. Similar to the Reynolds number, the
Grashof number is useful for determining whether a flow over an object is laminar or turbulent.
 Film temperature and Nusselt number

▪ In the case of heat transfer due to free convection, physical properties are evaluated at the
film temperature, given by the equation:
𝑇𝑠 + 𝑇∞
𝑇𝑓 =
2
For Horizontal cylinder

For sphere:
 Example 9
▪ Estimate the convective heat-transfer coefficient for convective heat loss from a
horizontal 10 cm diameter steam pipe. The surface temperature of the uninsulated
pipe is 130℃, and the air temperature is 30℃ as shown in the figure below.
(Assume heat loss from the horizontal pipe is by free convection.)
 Estimation of Overall Heat-Transfer Coefficient
▪ In many heating/cooling applications, conductive and convective heat transfer may occur
simultaneously as shown in the figure below.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

▪ In this case, heat must first transfer from the inside fluid by forced convection to the inside surface of the pipe,
then by conduction through the pipe wall material, and finally by free convection from the outer pipe surface to
the surrounding environment.
▪ Thus, heat transfer is through three layers in a series.
 Overall Heat-Transfer Coefficient
▪ Substituting Equations (2), (3), and (4) in Equation (1), we obtain:

▪ We can also write an expression for the overall heat transfer for
this example as :

where Ai is the inside area of the pipe, and Ui is the overall heat-transfer coefficient based on the inside area of
the pipe.
Equation (5) is used to calculate the
(5)
overall heat-transfer coefficient.
 Example 10
A 2.5-cm inside diameter pipe is being used to convey a liquid food at 80℃ as shown in the figure
below. The inside convective heat transfer coefficient is 10 W/(𝑚2 ℃). The pipe (0.5 cm thick) is made
of steel (thermal conductivity = 43 W/[m ℃]). The outside ambient temperature is 20℃. The outside
convective heat transfer coefficient is 100 W/(𝑚2 ℃). Calculate the overall heat transfer coefficient and
the heat loss from 1 m length of the pipe.
 Radiation Heat Transfer
▪ Radiation heat transfer occurs between two surfaces by the emission and later absorption of
electromagnetic waves (or photons). In contrast to conduction and convection, radiation requires
no physical medium for its propagation.

T is temperature (K)

❑e is emissivity, which describes the extent to which a surface is similar to a blackbody. For a blackbody, the
value of emissivity is 1.
Example 11

▪ Calculate the rate of heat energy emitted by 100m2 of a polished iron surface
(emissivity = 0.06) as shown in Figure shown below. The temperature of the
surface is 37℃.
▪
End of chapter 5