ABSTRACT
Radio frequency (RF) application for thawing of frozen food products is a promising technology for industrial use, but the process design and optimization to decide upon the process parameters are rather critical. This chapter discusses the physics and transport phenomena involved in an RF thawing process. As a typical study on transport phenomena of a process, the mathematical modeling of an RF thawing process also starts with a description of the system and the surrounding environment and a definition of the computational geometry in which the system properties, including the bottom and top electrode with the system walls, are properly defined. Specifically, as analysis of the critical issues involved is often the main purpose of simulation of such a process, mathematical representation of all the relevant phenomena involved in the process was included with the description of transport phenomena involved, equations to describe boundary conditions and physical properties of all the possible materials related to an RF process.
