Calculation of the convective heat transfer coefficient and thermal diffusivity of cucumbers using numerical simulation and the inverse method.

Cooling of fruits and vegetables, immediately after the harvest, has been a widely used method for maximizing post-harvest life. In this paper, an optimization algorithm and a numerical solution are used to determine simultaneously the convective heat transfer coefficient, hH, and the thermal diffusivity, α, for an individual solid with cylindrical shape, using experimental data obtained during its cooling. To this end, the one-dimensional diffusion equation in cylindrical coordinates is discretized and numerically solved through the finite volume method, with a fully implicit formulation. This solution is coupled to an optimizer based on the inverse method, in which the chi-square referring to the fit of the numerical simulation to the experimental data is used as objective function. The optimizer coupled to the numerical solution was applied to experimental data relative to the cooling of a cucumber. The obtained results for α and hH were coherent with the values available in the literature. With the results obtained in the optimization process, the cooling kinetics of cucumbers was described in details.