Mathematical modeling of meat cylinder cooking

The present study deals with the development of mathematical model to predict the temperature history of meat cylinders (6.6 cm diameter, 18 cm length and 650 g) during natural convection, natural convection with mixing of cold air and boiling. The differential equations obtained were solved using 4th order Runge-Kutta method. The results obtained were compared with those obtained by experiments. The experiments involved recording of temperatures at different radial locations with time in a previously prepared meat cylinder during different cooking processes. Surface heat transfer coefficients were determined from the empirical equations reported in the literature and were found to be 3.539, 6.159 and 1743.38 W/m2 K respectively for natural convection, natural convection with mixing of cold air and boiling. The average root-mean-square deviations between the observed and predicted temperature histories ranged from 3.21 to 8.78 °C for the cooking processes.