Biosystems Engineering (2004) 88 (1), 117125

doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2004.02.002
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
PH}Postharvest Technology
Airow through Beds of Apples and Chicory Roots
P. Verboven
1
; M.L. Hoang
1
; M. Baelmans
2
; B.M. Nicola.
1
1
Flanders Centre/Laboratory of Postharvest Technology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, W. de Croylaan 42, Leuven 3001, Belgium;
e-mail of corresponding author: pieter.verboven@agr.kuleuven.ac.be
2
Division Applied Mechanics and Energy Conversion, K.U. Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: martine.baelmans@mech.kuleuven.ac.be
(Received 8 July 2003; accepted in revised form 11 February 2004; published online 9 April 2004)
Pressure drops through batches of apples and chicory roots were measured. The results were correlated by
means of DarcyForchheimer equations. The equations were modied to incorporate the effect of shape,
surface roughness and connement based on physical considerations. The connement parameters were
determined by means of computational uid dynamics (CFD) simulations of conned beds by means of the
Brinkman-modied Ergun equation. The conned pressured drop tted the experimental data much better
than the basic Ergun equation for packings of innite dimensions. The differences in pressure drop between
chicory root beds of different alignment with the airow and with or without the presence of soil were
explained by the relative contribution of surface friction and particle drag.
# 2004 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved
Published by Elsevier Ltd
1. Introduction
Knowledge of airow through agricultural and
horticultural products stored in bulk is important for
proper cooling and control of optimal storage condi-
tions. Insufcient airow rates result in increased
product temperature coupled to higher respiration and
quality deterioration rates. High airow rates, on the
other hand, can result in excessive water loss, resulting
in shrivelling, and also cause large pressure drops that
require more powerful fan systems. The relation
between pressure drop and airow rate needs to be
known for optimal design and operation of cooling
facilities.
The phenomenon of pressure drop in airow through
agricultural and horticultural products has been widely
investigated for grains (Patterson et al., 1971; Matthies
& Petersen, 1974; Haque et al., 1982; Grama et al., 1984;
Kumar & Muir, 1986; Li & Sokhansanj, 1994; Giner &
Denisienia, 1996; Nimkar & Chattopadhyay, 2003) and
root vegetables (Staley & Watson, 1961; Neale &
Messer, 1976; Abrams & Fish, 1982; Irvine et al.,
1993) but less for other products (Chau et al., 1985;
Nimkar & Chattopadhyay; 2002). Relationships were
compiled in the ASAE Standards D2723 (ASAE, 1999).
In most cases, data were analysed by means of empirical
relationships, e.g., the non-linear models of Shedd
(1953) and Hukill and Ives (1955). Both have been
widely used because they t many experimental data
sets. However, the constants in these equations have a
purely empirical nature without physical meaning. An
alternative expression is the model of Ergun (1952).
Originally developed for packed beds of uniformly sized
spheres, the equation contains a linear and aquadratic
velocity term, which depends on bed porosity, particle
diameter and uid properties. The Ergun equation has
been simplied for application to beds of agricultural
products. In these Ergun-type models, the coefcients of
the linear and quadratic velocity term are directly
estimated, without incorporating physical characteristics
such as porosity and particle diameter. Therefore, these
models should also be considered as purely empirical.
Several authors have investigated ow direction and
the presence of foreign material on pressure drop (Chau
et al., 1985; Kumar & Muir, 1986; Irvine et al., 1993;
Giner & Denisienia 1996). Of these studies, the latter
three use purely empirical models to represent the effects
of particle size and shape, ow direction and foreign
material. Chau et al. (1985) employed a modied Ergun
equation, incorporating porosity, particle diameter and
uid properties and tted two remaining empirical
parameters to the measured pressure drops. The values
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1537-5110/$30.00 117 # 2004 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved
Published by Elsevier Ltd
of these parameters did not remain constant for different
fruit sizes and stacking patterns. Furthermore, the effect
of conning walls in the experimental arrangement was
not taken into account. Indeed, the measurement
section measured 055 m055 m (hydraulic diameter
of 055 m), while the particles had a diameter of
6783 mm. In this case, the connement ratio, expressed
as the proportion of the hydraulic diameter of the
section to the particle diameter, is less than 10. For
such ratios, pressure drop can be expected to be
signicantly affected by the wall friction and the higher
air void ratio in the layer near the wall (Eisfeld &
Schnitzlein, 2001).
In this article, the effects of particle size and shape,
alignment with the airow, soil fraction and wall
connement on pressure drop over horticultural pro-
ducts are investigated. Two distinct products were
chosen: apples, which are nearly spherical, and chicory
roots, which have a conical shape and often contain
considerable amounts of soil during air-cooled storage.
The effect of the above factors is incorporated by means
of physically meaningful parameters, starting from the
basic DarcyForchheimer theory with physically sound
parameters for pressure drop through packed beds. The
presented model is compared to measured pressure
drops through beds of apples and chicory roots in a
controlled wind tunnel.
2. Basic considerations
For a given airow rate, the corresponding pressure
drop through beds is determined by a combination of
viscous surface friction and form drag forces exerted by
the bed matrix on the ow. The most common
representation is given by the DarcyForchheimer
expression (Lage, 1998):
rp
m
K
u Cr u j ju 1
with p the pressure in Pa, u the velocity vector in ms
1
,
K is the Darcy permeability of the porous matrix in m
2
and C is the Forchheimer drag constant in m
1
. The rst
term on the right-hand side of Eqn (1) relates to friction
forces, involving uid viscosity m in kg m
1
s
1
, while the
second term expresses form drag resistance, and involves
uid density r in kg m
3
. The Forchheimer extension to
the law of Darcy is required when the particle Reynolds
number r u j jd
pe
=m where d
pe
is the effective diameter of
the particles in m) exceeds 1, which corresponds to most
practical situations for food cooling applications. The
effective diameter of the particles is dened as (Gaskell,
1992):
d
pe

6V
p

1
3
2
where V is the particle volume in m
3
. For non-uniformly
sized particles, a mean diameter can be used, derived
from the weight distribution of particle diameters
(Gaskell, 1992).
The parameters K and C depend on the geometrical
shape of the products, their surface roughness, the
porosity and the particle effective diameter. For smooth
particles, the Ergun equation applies and the coefcients
are well known (Ergun, 1952):
1
K

1501 e
2
l
2
d
2
pe
e
3
3
C
1751 el
d
pe
e
3
4
where e is the porosity of the porous medium and l is a
shape factor (Gaskell, 1992):
l
A
pd
2
pe
5
where A is the surface area of the particles in m
2
.
For high aspect ratio particles (in this case, for
chicory roots), the pressure drop is known to vary with
the orientation of particles to the main ow direction.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Notation
A particle surface area, m
2
A
w
; B
w
connement parameters
C Forchheimer drag coefcient, m
1
d
pe
effective particle diameter, m
D
h
hydraulic radius of wind tunnel, m
K Darcy permeability, m
2
K
1
, k
1
, empirical constants
k
2
p pressure, Pa
Re particle Reynolds number
u velocity vector, ms
1
V particle volume, m
3
x position vector, m
a
r
roughness factor
e bed porosity
l shape factor
m air viscosity, kg m
1
s
1
r air density, kg m
3
r
b
bulk density, kg m
3
r
p
product density, kg m
3
P. VERBOVEN ET AL. 118
Therefore, it is expected that Eqn (5) is insufcient to
describe the exact shape effect. The shape factor has to
be estimated for each orientation of chicory roots in this
study.
Concerning surface roughness, the following consid-
erations are made. For viscous drag, the surface
roughness increases the surface friction. To form drag,
however, the surface roughness enhances boundary
layer attachment and therefore reduces the pressure
differential in the ow direction (which is the purpose of,
e.g., the crater-like excavations on the surface of a golf
ball). It is assumed that roughness can be represented by
a single dimensionless parameter a
r
, which equals 1 for
smooth surfaces and increases with roughness. Follow-
ing the forgoing considerations, the Ergun coefcients
become:
1
K
a
r
K
1
1 e
2
l
2
d
2
pe
e
3
6
C
C
1
1 el
a
r
d
pe
e
3
7
In previous studies, shape and roughness effects have
been absorbed into the values of coefcients K
1
and C
1
without the additional parameters l and a
r
(Comiti &
Renaud, 1989). However, in the current study these
effects are added explicitly to Eqns (6) and (7), while
maintaining the values for K
1
150 and C
1
175. The
values of l and a
r
are tted to Eqns (6) and (7) from
experimental measurements of pressure drop and air-
ow rate over bulks of chicory roots.
Porous media ow is said to be conned where
packing dimensions are nite and wall effects on
pressure drop become important (Eisfeld & Schnitzlein,
2001; Beasley & Clark, 1984). A rst effect of the
presence of a wall is an extra resistance due to wall
friction. Secondly, near the wall the bed particles are
positioned in such a way that a region of increased
porosity is created, extending approximately half a
particle diameter into the packed bed (Benenati &
Brosilow, 1962). Generally, for high Reynolds number
ows through conned packed beds, the pressure drop is
independent or decreases (decreasing value of C
1
) with
decreasing channel-to-particle diameter ratio D
h
/d
pe
,
while for low Reynolds numbers the opposite trend is
observed (Eisfeld & Schnitzlein, 2001). Most evident
wall effects have been observed for channel-to-particle
diameter ratios smaller than 10 (Dolejs, 1978; Eisfeld &
Schnitzlein, 2001). In this study, the channel-to-particle
diameter ratios were 60 for apple and 110 for chicory
roots (using the maximum possible curvature of the root
near the wall, 40 mm). Therefore, connement is
investigated for apples, but not for chicory roots. Eisfeld
and Schnitzlein (2001) proposed the correlation of
Reichelt (1972) for conned beds, with the following
coefcients for Eqn (1):
1
K

K
1
A
2
w
1 e
2
d
2
pe
e
3
8
C
A
w
1 e
B
w
d
pe
e
3
9
where the wall correction terms are A
w
and B
w
.
Parameter A
w
is an analytical expression to account
for the effect of the conning wall on the hydraulic
radius of the bed voids of the porous medium (Reichelt,
1972), and is given by:
A
w
1
2
3D
h
=d
pe
1 e
10
where D
h
is the hydraulic diameter of the package in m.
The empirical function B
w
expresses the porosity effect
of the walls at high Reynolds number:
B
w

k
1
D
h
=d
pe

k
2

11
where k
1
and k
2
are constants. At high connement
ratio, A
w
equals 1 and B
w
equals k
2
. Therefore, k
2
should equal to (175)
1
, according to Eqn (3), valid for
innite smooth packed beds.
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Materials
Apples (Malus sylvestris subsp. mitis (Wallr.) Mansf.,
cv. Jonagold) and chicory roots (Cichorium intybus L.,
cv. foliosum Hegi) used in this study were procured from
ultra low oxygen (ULO) storage and cold air storage,
respectively, at auction Brava (Zellik, Belgium). Both
dirty and cleaned roots were studied. The mass
percentage of soil was measured by weighing the total
material before and after cleaning, and was found to be
12% on a wet basis (w.b.). The density r
p
of material
was calculated by the mass divided by the true volume of
the products. Bulk density r
b
was determined by
weighing the mass of products needed to ll the test
section. The bed void fraction was calculated as
e 1
r
b
r
p
12
where e is the bed void fraction, r
b
is the density of the
bulk in kg m
3
and r is the density of the product in
kg m
3
. The average effective diameter of the apples and
chicory roots was 74 and 90 mm, respectively, deter-
mined using the measured total volume and number of
particles with Eqn (2). The real surface area of the
apples was calculated with the empirical formula of
ARTICLE IN PRESS
AIRFLOW THROUGH APPLES AND CHICORY ROOTS 119
Schotsmans (2003), which resulted in a shape factor of
1168. The chicory roots were assumed to be cylindrical
with a diameter equal to 004 m and a length equal to
030 m; the shape factor was estimated to be 1593. As
this was a rough estimation, it was decided to estimate
the shape factor directly from the experimental pressure
drop data using Eqns (6) and (7), as discussed above.
The bed properties are summarised in Table 1.
3.2. Pressure drop experiments
Figure 1 shows a diagram of the equipment. The
airow was created by a centrifugal fan, which can
operate at different rotation speeds by changing the
voltage supply. To remove uctuations and to create a
uniform velocity prole, a settling chamber with
honeycomb grid was installed (Keijers & Mortier,
1992). The test section was 2 m long with a rectangular
internal cross section of 04 m by 05 m. The products
were placed in the middle of the test section over 1 m
length, covering the entire cross section. A wire frame
with a large open area was used to keep the products in
place.
The velocity at the test section inlet was measured by
an omni-directional transducer (TSI 8475, St Paul, MN,
USA) with a velocity range from 005 to 25 ms
1
and
an accuracy of 3% of full scale. Based on the velocity
prole measured in the vertical direction at the inlet of
the test section and compared to the more detailed
velocity prole measured by Keijers and Mortier (1992),
the total volumetric ow rate through the test section
was calculated. The supercial velocity, which was used
in all the calculations for the model, is the volumetric
ow rate per unit cross section of the test chamber. The
pressure drop was measured by a pressure transducer
(LPM 5000 series, Leicester LE6 0FH, England) having
a range from 0 to 100 Pa with an accuracy 025% of full
scale. Both transducers were connected to a data logger
(Hewlett Packard, Loveland, CO), which was interfaced
with a personal computer. For each conguration, the
measurements were done at a frequency of 5 Hz and
averaged over a 5-min period. Pressure drops larger
than 100 Pa were measured by an oil-lled manometer
and manually recorded.
A random lling was used for both apples and chicory
roots. Three replications were made to reduce the
inuence of the lling for each batch. In addition, for
chicory roots, two other llings were studied, in which
the chicory roots were ordered with the axis parallel and
perpendicular to the airow, respectively (Fig. 2). Both
clean and dirty roots (with a soil fraction of 12% w.b.)
were used in this study.
3.3. Simulation
The effect of the connement on the pressure drop
across the apple bulk was taken into account by means
of a computational uid dynamics (CFD) model using
the code CFX44 (AEAT, Harwell, UK) on a Pentium II
2-processor machine with 764 MB random access
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 1
Effective diameter and bulk porosity of batches of apples and chicory roots in the wind tunnel experiments
Product Batch arrangement Effective diameter, mm Bulk porosity
Apple Random 744 0435
Chicory root}dirty Random 896 0607
(12% w.b. soil) Parallel 896 0490
Transversal 896 0482
Chicory root}clean Random 896 0560
Parallel 896 0410
Transversal 896 0450
1
2 3 4 5 6
Fig. 1. Picture and diagram of the wind tunnel for the pressure
drop experiment: (1) centrifugal blower; (2) diffuser; (3)
honeycomb grid; (4) settling chamber; (5) contractor; and (6)
test chamber
P. VERBOVEN ET AL. 120
memory. Computational uid dynamics is a versatile
tool to study ow phenomena in food process engineer-
ing and particularly useful to study porous ows (van
der Sman, 2002; Alvarez et al., 2003). The geometry of
the test chamber was dened with pressure boundaries
up- and downstream of the bulk. The bulk of apples was
modelled as a porous medium to which the Ergun model
[Eqns (1)(4)] was applied with the Brinkman extension
to account for viscous effects near the wall (Brinkman,
1947). The full CFD model reads:
ru 0
rp
m
K
u Cr u j ju rmr
u
ex

13
1
K

1501 ex
2
l
2
d
2
pe
ex
3
and C
1:751 exl
d
pe
ex
3
where e(x) is the position-dependent porosity. The
region near the walls extending half an apple diameter
into the bulk was assigned a porosity double (0666) of
the remaining core region (0333). The total porosity of
the bulk was equal to the measured value (0435). The
Brinkman term has to be written in terms of the uid
velocity and not the supercial velocity (Lage, 1997).
Simulations were performed for different connement
ratios. For this purpose, the CFD model was run with
particle diameters of 5, 15, 35 and 744 mm introduced
into the equations, and adjusting the wall region size to
the appropriate dimension (half of the particle dia-
meter). The corresponding average bed porosity was set
to 0365, 0365, 0385 and 0435, according to the
observations of Beasley and Clark (1984), who investi-
gated mean porosity as a function of connement ratio.
For high ratios (small particle diameters), these authors
found the porosity to be constant and equal to 0365.
The distribution of porosity was for each case calculated
by means of the procedure explained in the previous
paragraph.
The model was solved on a control volume mesh of
27 200238 000 control volumes with renements near
the walls, depending on the connement ratio. The
standard solution algorithms in CFX44 were employed.
Convergence of the mass and momentum residuals (less
than 80 10
6
) was achieved after 250 and 9600 s in
terms of central processing units (CPU), depending on
mesh size.
The CFD model was run for different pressure drops
applied over each batch, which were plotted against the
predicted volumetric airow rate through the bed. These
curves were then tted with Eqn (1) and coefcients in
Eqns (8) and (9) that include the wall correction terms of
Eqns (10) and (11).
3.4. Data analysis
Statistical analysis was performed by means of the
SAS System 82 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA),
using the procedure NLIN with the Marquardt algo-
rithm. A weighted least-squares procedure was imple-
mented to increase the weighting of low velocities and
pressure drops during optimisation, to balance the
Darcy contribution to the Forchheimer contribution in
Eqn (1). This was achieved by weighting with a
reciprocal function of the velocity value at each velocity.
This further reduced the correlation values of the
estimated parameters l and a
r
for the different batches
of chicory roots and K
1
, k
1
and k
2
for the conned bulk
of apples.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Effect of connement on airow resistance of apple
The pressure drop over a random bulk of apples
(three repetitions) was measured at supercial velocities
ranging from 009 to 106 ms
1
. Assuming smooth
surfaces, the Ergun equation, with a particle diameter
of 00744 m, a porosity of 0435 and a shape factor of
1168, was compared to the measurements in Fig. 3. The
Ergun equation clearly overpredicts the pressured drop:
in the range of 10100 Pa, the error on the predicted
pressure drop is larger than 65%. The results of the
CFD simulation of the conned porous medium are also
given in Fig. 3. It is shown that the connement reduces
the pressure drop, due to wall channelling. The
comparison with measured data is much better: the
error reduces to 20%. The results were used to t
Eqn (1) with the coefcients given by Eqns (8) and (9).
The coefcients are listed in Table 2. Note that
coefcients K
1
and k
2
almost equal the coefcient values
of 150 and (175)
1
, respectively, for innite packings.
It is generally accepted that conned beds with D
h
/d
pe
ratios higher than 10 have little inuence on the pressure
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Air flow
Transversal
Air flow
Parallel
Fig. 2. Transversal and parallel arrangement of chicory root
batches to the airow direction
AIRFLOW THROUGH APPLES AND CHICORY ROOTS 121
drop through the batch. The CFD model was used to
calculate the pressure drop over conned beds with
different D
h
/d
pe
ratios, for the wind tunnel under
consideration. Figure 4 shows the ratio of the calculated
conned pressure drop to the pressure drop for an
innite packing as a function of D
h
/d
pe
and for different
particle Reynolds numbers. At low Reynolds numbers
the pressure drop is increased by the wall effect, whilst at
high Reynolds number the pressure drop is decreased.
This corresponds to the observation of Eisfeld and
Schnitzlein (2001) on experimental data sets and is
explained by the fact that two counteracting effects of
wall friction and increased near-wall porosity. Increased
wall friction is important at low Reynolds numbers and
increases pressure drop more than 2 times at conne-
ment ratios as low as 2. Increased wall porosity
dominates the high Reynolds number regime and
decreases pressure as more uid can pass through the
more open structure. This reduction can reach a value of
05 at a connement ratio of 2. Increased near-wall
velocity proles resulting in similar effects have been
observed by Newell and Standish (1973) and Bey and
Eigenberger (1997) in reactor beds. From Fig. 4,
connements need to be taken into account for D
h
/d
pe
ratios less than 10, while these are less important above
values of 10.
4.2. Effect of particle shape, alignment and dirt on airow
resistance of chicory roots
The pressure drop over dirty and clean chicory roots
was measured. In both cases, random batches as well as
batches of roots with their longitudinal axis parallel and
transversal to the ow were investigated. Figures 5 and 6
show the data and the non-linear regression line for each
set of data. A good t was obtained for all data sets. The
root mean square error (RMSE) of the ts for dirty
roots was 08, 28 and 21 Pa for transversal, parallel and
random arrangements, respectively. For clean roots, the
values of the RMSE were, respectively, 69, 14 and
12 Pa for transversal, parallel and random arrange-
ments. The corresponding values with standard devia-
tion for the estimated shape factor and roughness factor
are given in Table 3.
Surface roughness is not important for the transversal
arrangement, since a
r
equals 1. There are no roots
aligned parallel with the ow to create channels with
important friction losses in the transversal arrangement.
Channels may be created in the random batches,
resulting in a roughness factor higher than 1 (a
r
16
25). Parallel beds create signicant channels through
which the airow experiences surface friction. Conse-
quently, the roughness factor is highest for parallel
arrangements (a
r
1832). Roughness effects are also
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 2
Estimated connement parameters (K
1
, k
1
and k
2
) for pressure
drop through batches of apples, tted from Eqns (8)(11)
Parameter Value Standard deviation
K
1
1335 18
k
1
2796 0162
k
2
0561 0006
0
.
1
1
10
100
1000
0
.
01 0
.
1 1 10
Velocity, m s
1
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p
,

P
a

m

1
Fig. 3. Pressure drop through batches of apples: }, Ergun
(conned batch of apples, computational uid dynamics);
}&}, Ergun (innite batch); &, measurements
0
.
0
0
.
5
1
.
0
1
.
5
2
.
0
2
.
5
3
.
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Confinement ratio (D
h
/d
pe
)
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p

r
a
t
i
o

(
p
f
/

p
i
n
f
)
Fig. 4. Ratio of pressure drop of nite packing with conning
walls (Dp
f
) to pressure drop of innite packing(Dp
inf
) as a
function of connement ratio of hydraulic diameter (D
h
) to
particle diameter (d
pe
), with connement coefcients tted to
computational uid dynamics simulations, and for various
Reynolds numbers Re: }^}, Re 10; }&}, Re 100;
}m}, Re 1000
P. VERBOVEN ET AL. 122
more important for clean roots (a
r
25 for the random
clean batch) compared to dirty roots (a
r
16 for the
random dirty batch). The dirty chicory roots were
covered with a considerable layer of loamy soil (12% of
total weight of the bulk). Chicory root has a very
irregular surface, covered with root hairs. The ne-
structured loam lls up the irregularities on the surfaces
and covers the root hairs to a large extent, resulting in a
smoother surface.
The effect of shape depends on the alignment of the
product with the airow. Random batches (l 2331)
appear to have a larger effect of shape than transversal
beds (l 1926), while it is smallest for parallel batches
(l 1218). The more open structure of random
batches will induce more boundary layer separation
phenomena on single particles, which increases particle
drag with respect to transversal arrangements. In
parallel beds, surface friction effects are more important
than particle drag.
The random arrangement with dirty roots was
measured for three replications. The larger condence
bounds on the parameters for this case in Table 2 reect
natural variability from one batch to another. It may be
necessary to take this variation into account in the
design of cooling facilities of horticultural and agricul-
tural products in conned packages.
Figure 7 displays the pressure drop curves for all the
arrangements in a linear scale that shows better the
differences than a loglog presentation used in previous
plots. The pressure drop through random batches of
dirty chicory roots is 4050% higher compared to clean
roots (Fig. 7), mainly because of the higher shape factor.
The shape factor will increase both the Darcy and
Forchheimer terms in the pressure drop equations, while
the roughness will decrease the particle drag in the
Forchheimer term. Transversal beds have more than
double as large a pressure drop compared to random
beds (Fig. 7), because of a lower porosity in the
transversal case (Table 1). Due to channelling in the
parallel batches, pressure drops are relatively low, and
comparable to random batches.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 3
Estimated shape factor k and roughness factor a
r
from the pressure drop through batches of chicory roots, tted from Eqns (6) and (7)
Batch Arrangement Factors Standard deviation
l a
r
l a
r
Dirty roots Random 306 158 043 026
Parallel 179 180 005 010
Transversal 264 100 004 000
Clean roots Random 231 248 001 004
Parallel 119 322 001 003
Transversal 186 100 006 005
0
.
1
1
10
100
1000
0
.
01 0
.
1 1 10
Velocity, m s
1
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p
,

P
a

m

1
Fig. 5. Pressure drop through batches of dirty chicory roots as a
function of supercial air velocity, for different arrangements of
the roots: m, transversal; ^, parallel; &, random; }, pressure
drop equation, taking into account the root shape factor and the
surface roughness factor of each arrangement
0
.
1
1
10
100
1000
0
.
01 0
.
1 1
.
0 10
Velocity, m s
1
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p
,

P
a

m

1
Fig. 6. Pressure drop through batches of clean chicory roots as a
function of supercial air velocity, for different arrangements of
the roots: m, transversal; ^, parallel; &, random; }, pressure
drop equation, taking into account the root shape factor and the
surface roughness factor of each arrangement
AIRFLOW THROUGH APPLES AND CHICORY ROOTS 123
5. Conclusions
Deviations in the pressure drop through beds of
apples and chicory roots from the well-known Ergun
equation for random beds of spheres were explained by
differences in the shape, surface roughness and conne-
ment of the package. These effects were incorporated
into newly proposed pressure drop correlations, based
on the fundamental DarcyForchheimer relationship.
Taking into account the package to apple diameter ratio
(also referred to as connement ratio) reduced the
deviation of the calculated pressure drop curve from the
experimental data from 65 to 20%. Accounting for the
shape and roughness of dirty and clean chicory roots
resulted in correlations that tted the experimental data
with a root means square error (RMSE) smaller than
7 Pa, and in most cases smaller than 3 Pa, in the
measurement range of 05150 Pa and ow rates of
005130 m
3
s
1
m
2
. Values for the shape and rough-
ness factors of the roots were physically explained by the
presence of channels (higher importance of roughness
through friction losses), the presence of soil (causing
lower roughness, thus lower friction losses), and the
blockage of the airow by the roots (higher importance
of shape through drag losses), while pressure drop was
further strongly affected by the bed porosity. As a result,
the pressure drop in transversal arrangements was more
than two and up to three times higher than in parallel
and random arrangements, due to the high blockage
effect and low porosity (045048). Random batches
had the highest porosity (above 05) and the lowest
pressure drop for dirty as well as clean batches. Parallel
arrangements had a considerable effect of channelling
compensating the effect of the low porosity for this case
(as low as 04).
Shape and roughness factors are not easily deter-
mined for agricultural and horticultural products, which
have a large variation in shape and size, within one
batch and between batches. However, the presented
analysis allows the interpretation of experimental
observations from a physical point of view, which in a
next phase will assist the design of bulks for improved
cooling. Measurement of pressure drop for a particular
application will remain necessary, and natural varia-
bility should be taken into account in the design. With a
random lling of complex shaped products, such as
chicory roots, pressure drop from one lling to another
can differ by 1030%.
Wall connement increases the pressure drop at low
particle Reynolds number and decreases the pressure
drop at high particle Reynolds number. This is due to
the counteracting effects of surface friction and in-
creased near-wall porosity. These effects are most
important at small connement ratios, i.e. when the
hydraulic radius of the packing is smaller than 10 times
the particle diameter, which was shown by a correlation
that describes the effect of connement on pressure
drop, and which corresponds to the results described
already in the literature.
Alternative to measurement, airow through batches
of products can be explicitly modelled by means of
computational uid dynamics (CFD). This is the
preferred method when heat and mass transfer need to
be analysed. Indeed, one often observes excessive drying
of products near the walls during cooling by forced air,
due to the channelling effect. CFD will then help to
quantify the differences in drying between the wall
region and the centre of the bulk.
Acknowledgements
Pieter Verboven acknowledges the Flemish Fund for
Scientic Research (F.W.O.-Vlaanderen) for the post-
doctoral fellowship. The Flemish Minister of Environ-
ment, Agriculture and Development Cooperation and the
Interfaculty Council of Development Cooperation K.U.
Leuven are gratefully acknowledged for nancial support.
References
Abrams C F; Fish Jr J D (1982). Airow resistance
characteristics of bulk piled sweet potatoes. Transactions
of the ASAE, 25(4), 11031106
Alvarez G; Bournet P-E; Flick D (2003). Two-dimensional
simulation of turbulent ow and transfer through stacked
ARTICLE IN PRESS
0
50
100
150
200
0 0
.
5 1
.
0 1.5
Velocity, m s
1
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p
,

P
a

m

1
Fig. 7. Linear scale plot of pressure drop for different arrange-
ments of clean and dirty (12% wet basis soil) chicory roots as a
function of supercial velocity: m, clean transversal; ^, clean
parallel; &, clean random; 4, dirty transversal; }, dirty
parallel; &, dirty random
P. VERBOVEN ET AL. 124
spheres. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer,
46(13), 24592469
ASAE (1999). ASAE Standards D272.3 1999. Standards,
Engineering Practices, Data American Society of Agricul-
tural Engineers, St Joseph, MI 46th Edition, pp 544550.
Beasley D E; Clark J A (1984). Transient response of a packed
bed for thermal energy storage. International Journal of
Heat and Mass Transfer, 27(9), 16591669
Benenati R F; Brosilow C B (1962). Void fraction distribution
in beds of spheres. American Institute of Chemical
Engineers Journal, 8, 359361
Bey O; Eigenberger G (1997). Fluid ow through catalyst lled
tubes, Chemical Engineering Science, 52(8), 13651376
Brinkman H C (1947). A calculation of viscous force exerted by
a owing uid on a dense swarm of particles. Applied
Science Research, A1, 2734
Chau K V; Gaffney J J; Baird C D; Church A G (1985).
Resistance to airow of oranges in bulk and in cartons.
Transactions of the ASAE, 28(6), 20832088
Comiti J; Renaud M (1989). New model for determining mean
structure parameters of xed beds. Chemical Engineering
Science, 44(7), 15391545
Dolejs V (1978). Pressure drop in viscous ow of a Newtonian
liquid through a random bed of spherical particles.
International Chemical Engineering, 18, 718723
Eisfeld B; Schnitzlein K (2001). The inuence of conning walls
on the pressure drop in packed beds. Chemical Engineering
Science, 56, 43214329
Ergun S (1952). Fluid ow through packed columns. Chemical
Engineering Progress, 48(2), 89
Gaskell D R (1992). An Introduction to Transport Phenomena
in Materials Engineering. Macmillan Publishing Company,
New York
Giner S A; Denisienia E (1996). Pressure drop through wheat
as affected by air velocity, moisture content and nes.
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 63, 7386
Grama S N; Bern C J; Hurburgh Jr C R (1984). Airow
resistance of mixtures of shelled corn and nes. Transactions
of the ASAE, 27, 268272
Haque E; Ahmed Y N; Deyoe C W (1982). Static pressure drop
in a xed bed of grain as affected by grain moisture content.
Transactions of the ASAE, 25, 10951098
Hukill W V; Ives N C (1955). Radial airow resistance of grain.
Agricultural Engineering, 36(5), 332335
Irvine D A; Jayas D S; Mazza G (1993). Resistance to airow
through clean and soiled potatoes. Transactions of the
ASAE, 36(5), 14051410
Keijers S; Mortier G (1992). Simulatie van de dispersie van
zware gassen met behulp van een windtunnel. Masters
Thesis, Mechanical Engineering Department, Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Kumar A; Muir W E (1986). Airow resistance of wheat and
barley affected by airow direction, lling method and
dockage. Transactions of the ASAE, 29(5), 14231426
Lage J L (1998). The fundamental theory of ow through
permeable media from Darcy to turbulence. In: Transport
Phenomena in Porous Media (Ingham D B; Pop I, eds.),
pp 130. Pergamon, Oxford
Li W; Sokhansanj S (1994). Generalised equation for airow
resistance of bulk grains with variable density, moisture
content and nes. Drying Technology, 12(3), 649668
Matthies H J; Petersen H (1974). New data for calculating the
resistance to airow of stored granular material. Transac-
tions of the ASAE, 17(6), 11441149
Neale M A; Messer H J M (1976). Resistance of root and bulb
vegetables to airow. Journal of Agricultural Engineering
Research, 21, 221231
Newell R; Standish N (1973). Velocity distribution in rectan-
gular packed-beds and non-ferrous blast furnaces. Metal-
lurgical Transactions, 4(8), 18511857
Nimkar P M; Chattopadhyay P K (2002). Airow resistance of
pigeonpea as affected by moisture content, bulk density and
bed depth. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 39(4),
371378
Nimkar P M; Chattopadhyay P K (2003). Airow resistance of
pulse grains. Journal of Food Science and Technology,
40(1), 2834
Patterson R J; BakkerArkema F W; Bickert W G (1971).
Static pressureairow relationships in packed beds of
granular biological materials such as grain}II. Transac-
tions of the ASAE, 14(1), 172174,178
Reichelt W (1972). Zur Berechnung des Druckverlustes
einphasig durchstr. oomter Kugel- und Zylindersch. uuttungen.
[On the calculation of the pressure loss of one-phase ow
through stacks of spheres and cylinders.] Chemie-Ingenieur-
Technik, 44, 10681071
Schotsmans W (2003). Gas diffusion properties of pome fruit in
relation to storage potential. PhD Thesis 557, Faculty of
Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences, Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, pp 7173
Shedd C K (1953). Resistance of grain and seed to airow.
Agricultural Engineering, 34(9), 616619
Staley L M; Watson E L (1961). Some design aspects of
refrigerated potato storage. Canadian Agricultural Engi-
neering, 3(1), 2022
van der Sman R G M (2002). Prediction of airow through a
vented box by the DarcyForchheimer equation. Journal of
Food Engineering, 55, 4957
ARTICLE IN PRESS
AIRFLOW THROUGH APPLES AND CHICORY ROOTS 125