Temperature distribution in food freezing and consequences for the food processing system

A food processing company was looking for a was to optimize the overall rate of shipped products. The freezer was the main interest of our optimization so experimental temperature data was collected and studied. A numerical model was also constructed. One outcome of these efforts was the discovery of a loading law with an exponential relationship between mass of food frozen in a given batch and the time it takes to freeze it. We also found an optimal load to the freezer such that the rate of frozen product from the freezer was a maximum. When the chiller upstream and the freezer were considered together as a system, we found optimizing the freezer did not necessarily optimize the upstream process. Simulation was needed in order to describe the overall continuous process of the plant.