ABSTRACT
Drying of fruits and agricultural products is very important in food engineering and processing, and in the perfume and healthcare industries. Convective drying is one of the most popular methods for drying of agricultural products in the food industry. This chapter focuses on diffusion-based models and the computational approaches used for the numerical simulation of the drying process of agricultural products. It presents an overview of the different diffusion-based models and discusses conjugated and non-conjugated computational approaches. Regarding in particular non-conjugated models, a more extensive description of the parameters is given, involving the Convective Transfer Coefficients (CTCs). Steady-state computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed to estimate the values of the CTCs for the specific flow configuration. The chapter highlights strengths and weaknesses of the different models. Finally, the successive application of a model for the simulation of the drying of quince slices is reviewed.
