Computational and numerical modeling of rice hydration and dehydration: A review

•This review explains the modeling of rice hydration and dehydration processes.•Fickian models have been extensively used to explain the soaking and drying of rice.•The geometry of the kernel, shrinkage and swelling played critical roles on modeling.•This review indicated that temperature and moisture profiles can be predicted using modeling techniques.

Cooking of rice is a complex process, as the processes such as, water uptake, heat transfer, gelatinization and structural changes take place simultaneously. Dehydration of rice is another important process; thereby, required moisture content is achieved for better storage. Computational and numerical modeling tools can be used to study and understand these complex changes occurring during rice hydration and dehydration. The results from previous studies have shown that the computational and numerical modeling can be used for predicting the moisture content, diffusion coefficient, temperature profile etc. This review provides information about various modeling techniques such as finite element, finite difference, numerical and computational methods used by many researchers in the context of explaining the rice hydration and dehydration processes. The recent developments in this research area such as, three dimensional modeling and validation using magnetic resonance imaging have also been discussed. In addition, the current limitations and future scope for the potential research in this area are also highlighted.