Hong Yoon-Ki, Stanley Roger, Tang Juming, Bui Lan, Ghandi Amir
Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-6120, USA.
Centre for Food Innovation, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia.
Foods. 2021 Feb 3;10(2):311. doi: 10.3390/foods10020311.
Microwave assisted thermal sterilization (MATS) is a novel microwave technology currently used in the commercial production of ready-to-eat meals. It combines surface heating of high-temperature circulation water with internal microwave heating in cavities. The heating pattern inside the food packages in a MATS process depends heavily on the electric field distribution formed by microwaves from the top and bottom windows of the microwave heating cavities. The purpose of this research was to study the effect of the electric field on 922 MHz microwave heating of ready-to-eat meals as they moved through the microwave chamber of a pilot-scale MATS system using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. A three-dimensional numerical simulation model was developed as a digital twin of the MATS process of food moving through the microwave chamber. The simulation showed that the electric field intensity of the MATS microwave cavity was greatest on the surface and side edge of the cavity and of the food. There was a strong similarity of the experimental heating pattern with that of the electric field distribution simulated by a computer model. The digital twin modeling approach can be used to design options for improving the heating uniformity and throughput of ready-to-eat meals in MATS industrial systems.
微波辅助热杀菌（MATS）是一种新型微波技术，目前用于即食餐的商业生产。它将高温循环水的表面加热与腔体内的内部微波加热相结合。在MATS过程中，食品包装内部的加热模式在很大程度上取决于由微波加热腔顶部和底部窗口发出的微波所形成的电场分布。本研究的目的是使用时域有限差分（FDTD）方法，研究电场对即食餐在中试规模MATS系统的微波腔中移动时922 MHz微波加热的影响。开发了一个三维数值模拟模型，作为食品在微波腔中移动的MATS过程的数字孪生模型。模拟结果表明，MATS微波腔的电场强度在腔体表面和边缘以及食品表面和边缘处最大。实验加热模式与计算机模型模拟的电场分布具有很强的相似性。数字孪生建模方法可用于设计改进MATS工业系统中即食餐加热均匀性和产量的方案。
