Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
2001 S. Lincoln Ave.
URBANA,IL 61801
Performing Department
Food Science & Human Nutrition
Non Technical Summary
The project will involve collaborating with other NC-1023 stations to solve food science problems using a multiscale modeling approach. With this approach, the effect of a process on quality changes taking place in foods can be described using computer simulations. This allows testing of a large number of experimental parameters to obtain settings leading to foods with desirable quality parameters that are also nutritious for the consumer. Examples of potential applications that are expected to be studied with multistate project collaborations are frying, drying, and freezing of foods. Studying the behavior of foods by solution of equations will provide insights into complex transport mechanisms that affect the quality changes in foods. Comparisons will be made to the experimental validation data collected in collaboration with other NC-1023 stations.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
70%
Applied
30%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Characterize physical, chemical, and biological properties of raw and processed foods, by-products, and packaging materials.
Develop mechanistic and data-driven mathematical models to enhance understanding and optimization of processes and products that will ensure sustainable and agile food manufacturing for safe, high quality, and health-promoting foods.
Adapt pedagogical strategies involving novel educational approaches to enhance and assess student learning of food engineering.
Project Methods
Hybrid mixture theory (HMT) of porous media will be used to integrate the information from micro to macro scales in foods showing hierarchical porous structure. HMT-based equations of fluid, species, and heat transfer will be used to describe the transport processes in pores of foods. The changes in mechanical behavior of biopolymers, continuously evolving structures, and state and phase transitions in foods will be accounted for in the developed mathematical models. The solution will be obtained using the finite element method. The moving boundary effects will be addressed using Eulerian-Lagrangian transformations. The material properties and validation data will be obtained in collaboration with NC-1023 collaborating stations.