ABSTRACT
For the design of thermal food process operations the temperature in the thermal center of the food during the process must be known. Whereas traditionally this temperature course is measured using thermocouples, there is a growing interest towards the use of mathematical models to predict the food temperature during the thermal treatment [1−4]. The advantages of such an approach include the computation of
heat penetration curves corresponding to arbitrary process conditions and container shapes (e.g., glass jars [2]), the ability to predict overshoot [5], rapid on-line evaluation of unscheduled process deviations [6], and optimization of thermal processes [7,8].
