Cornell University Biological and Environmental Engineering

• Research Areas
• Biomedical Applications
• Food as Porous Media
• Combination Microwave Heating
• Thermal and Hygrostresses
• Computer-Aided Food Process Engineering

Development of Computer-Aided Engineering Tools for Food Processes

Today's design process is characterized by several critical factors, often driven by fierce competition: the need to reduce cost, need to reduce time to market, and need to make dramatic changes. Increasing the efficiency of this design process would add tremendous value to this industry by helping each of the aspects just mentioned. Use of computer prototyping, where one builds a model that is as close to the physical model as possible – the exact shape, size, process, etc., is a tool extensively used by other industries to increase such efficiencies. In food industry, processes are complex and the investment in research has been quite low. Thus, on the one hand there is complex physics that need to be delineated, on the other hand the industry is not able or willing to spend the resources to do that. Commercial software lacks implementation of some processes critical and unique to food industry. As a result, the food industry does not benefit. We intend to develop or prime the computing environment so that the food industry will integrate and benefit from such productivity tool.

Our goal is to integrate various aspects of modeling in the context of computer implementation, using software developed by us or available commercially. We plan to develop a database of customized problem formulation for various food processes. We plan to eventually integrate multi-physics, optimization, uncertainty analysis and other CAE concepts.

Workshop

Models for Safety, Quality and Competitiveness of the Food Processing Sector, June 23, Orlando, Florida

Recent Invited Talk

Datta, A. K. 2005. Modeling heat and mass transfer in food systems: Current state and needs. Invited speaker at the EUROTHERM Seminar 77—Heat and Mass Transfer in Food Processing, Part of the 23 rd National Congress on Heat Transfer of the Italian Union of Thermal-Fluid Dynamics, Parma, Italy, June 20-22.Proceedings of the conference, Pages 3-8.

Selected Publications

• Zhang, J., A. K. Datta and S. Mukherjee. 2005. Transport processes and large deformation during baking of bread. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, 51(9):2569-2580.
• Datta, A. K. 2003. Enabling modeling as a tool in food product, process and equipment design. Invited speaker in the International Symposium on Future Technologies for Food Production and Future Food Scientists, Göteborg, Sweden, June 2-4. Proceedings of the Symposium published by SIK-Dokument no 162, ISSN 0280-9737, Kompendiet, Göteborg, Sweden, pp. 64-67.