Received: 6 October 2017 Revised: 24 April 2018 Accepted: 28 April 2018

DOI: 10.1111/jfpe.12821

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A simple method to estimate the thermal diffusivity of foods

João Mari | Marcus Mari | Maykon Ferreira | Wagner Conceição | Cid Andrade

Mechanical Engineering Department, State

University of Maringa, Maringa, Parana, Brazil
Correspondence
João Marcos Roncari Mari, Mechanical
Engineering Department, State University of
Maringa, Maringa, Parana, Brazil.
Email: joao_roncari@hotmail.com
Funding information
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal
de Nível Superior
Abstract
This work shows an alternative method to determine the thermal diffusivity of wheat flour and
cassava, by means of experiments. It was considered as a model for analysis a semi-infinite solid,
represented by an aluminum container filled with flour, an incandescent lamp as a heat source
and thermocouple sensors for acquisition of electronic temperature signal. From the moment in
which the temperature on the upper surface of flour remained constant, the data were acquired
at a predefined time interval, which allowed obtaining the thermal diffusivity. To evaluate the
results achieved from the experiments, it was carried out a simulation in Partial Differential
Equation Toolbox of Matlab R2015a, in order to compare the temperature distributions within
the solid. It was verified that the values showed by simulation are satisfactorily close to the
experimental values.

Practical applications
Some information about physical properties of foods usually are not available, therefore, a sim-
ple method to estimate the thermal diffusivity could be useful, once it influences the quality
control of foods. Thus, the findings of this study may facilitate the food industry, assisting the
design, and simulation of process, such as heating, cooling, freezing, defrosting, frying, and
storage.

1 | I N T RO D UC T I O N Accurate and reliable values of thermal properties are required to sim-

ulate temperature change during heat treatments, transport, storage,
Many applications in engineering and also in daily tasks of people and food distribution (Betta, Rinaldi, Barbanti, & Massini, 2009).
involve heat transfer. Heat transfer can be defined as thermal energy One of the most important thermal properties of substances that
in transit due to temperature gradient at space, in other words, when- can be determined by experiments is thermal diffusivity. This property
ever there is temperature difference at environment, consequently interferes crucially during transient processes, and its knowledge is
heat transfer will occur (Incropera, Dewitt, Bergman, & Lavine, 2006). important not only in the preservation phase but also to avoid irre-
There are three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, versible damage caused by large temperature variations (Bairi,
and thermal radiation. The first one refers to heat transfer in a station- Laraqi, & de María, 2007).
ary environment, which might be solid or fluid due to the temperature Thermal diffusivity (α), defined by Equation (1) (Incropera et al.,
gradient. Convection occurs between a surface and a moving fluid 2006), depends basically on three physical properties, such as thermal
when they are in different temperatures. Finally, all matter with a tem- conductivity (k), density (ρ), and specific heat (cp).
perature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation by means
k
of electromagnetic waves. Whereas conduction and convection α= : ð1Þ
ρ × cp
require the presence of a material environment, for radiation it is not
necessary (Incropera et al., 2006). It represents the material ability to conduct heat in relation with
Knowledge of thermal properties is essential for the right moni- ability to store it (Betta et al., 2009). Moreover, it also defines how
toring and control of all food processing operations that involve heat fast energy propagates or diffuses through the material
transfer, such as heating, cooling, freezing, defrosting, and frying. (Singh, 1982).

J Food Process Eng. 2018;e12821. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jfpe © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 of 7

https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpe.12821
2 of 7 MARI ET AL.

Several studies in food process engineering have evaluated the 2 | M A T E R I A L S A N D M ET H O D S

determination of thermal diffusivity by means of experiments,
whereas information about this parameter is not usually available
2.1 | Wheat and cassava flour samples
(Erdogdu, 2008).
Wheat and cassava flour were obtained from a Brazilian market, at a
Markowski, Bialobrzewski, Cierach, and Paulo (2004) analyzed
moisture content of 15% wet basis, as established by the Brazilian leg-
the thermal diffusivity of sausages during cooking and cooling,
islation for wheat flour (Anvisa, 1996) and 13% wet basis for fine cas-
obtaining its temperature data over time. The sample was consid-
sava flour (Mapa, 1995).
ered as a finite cylinder with constant surface temperature, and the
heat conduction equation was solved by analytical and numerical
methods. 2.2 | Experimental arrangement
Carciofi, Faistel, Aragão, and Laurindo (2002) evaluated the ther- To determine the thermal diffusivity of foods an experiment was car-
mal diffusivity of mortadella by two methods. The first one consisted ried out involving an aluminum container, two thermocouples con-
in applying the Ball and Olson (1957) empirical equation, which ana- nected on computer, a 110 V incandescent bulb, wheat flour, and fine
lyzes the difference between food transient temperature and heat cassava flour. First, the container was filled with wheat flour, after
source temperature in relation to time. On the other hand, the second that, one of the thermocouples was positioned on surface and the
method was based on the numerical solution of the heat conduction other at 0.06 m of depth, these thermocouples were responsible for
equation by explicit finite difference. acquisition of temperature electronic signal. The same steps were fol-
Muramatsu, Greiby, Mishra, and Dolan (2017) determined the
lowed to fine cassava flour.
thermal diffusivity of several foods using finite differences method to The bulb was set over flour surface, so that the radiation emission
solve the one-dimensional cylindrical equation of heat conduction. would induce heat transfer. Figure 1 shows the arrangement
The experiment consisted of filling a container with food, after that, it described.
was dived in heated water to collect temperature values over time at The aluminum container has 0.12 m of depth; however, it was
some positions inside the container. Later, it was carried out a com- filled with flour only 0.10 m and the thermocouple was positioned at
puter simulation to compare the data. 0.06 m in relation to flour surface. This choice was done in order to
Mauricio and Francisco (2017) modeled heat transfer during
blanching of cubic particles of loche and potato in order to obtain the
variation of the thermal diffusivity according to the temperature
increase. For this, first of all, the authors determined experimentally
the heat transfer coefficient during heating of different sizes of alumi-
num cubes by means of Newton’s law. After that, thermal diffusivity
was calculated using one-dimensional analytical solution for the heat
transfer equation of an infinite cylinder. Finally to validate the mathe-
matical model, a computer program in Visual Basic language was
developed modeling heat transfer through to the method of finite dif-
ference in three-dimensional.
Pohndorf et al. (2017) investigated the influence of broken ker-
nels and moisture content on some physical properties of soybeans,
especially thermal diffusivity. A metallic cylinder was filled with soy-
beans and taken to an oven for a certain period of time. A thermocou-
ple inserted into the cylinder was responsible for the temperature
acquisition and the “Log” method (Dotto, Pinto, & Moreira, 2016;
Magee & Bransburg, 1995) was used to determine the thermal
diffusivity.
A lot of softwares have been used to analyze, formulate, and
solve situations involving heat transfer. The Matlab tool, Partial Differ-
ential Equation Toolbox (PDETOOL) provides functions to solve par-
tial differential equations using finite element analysis. It can be
applied to several cases, such as mechanical structures, electrostatics,
magnetism, diffusion, and heat transfer (Mathworks, 2016), as can be
seen in Carzino (2006) and Rocha (2011).
This study aims to apply a simple method to estimate the thermal
diffusivity of wheat flour and cassava by means of experiments and
after compare with simulations in PDETOOL. FIGURE 1 Experimental arrangement
MARI ET AL. 3 of 7

reduce the time necessary for heat supplied by lamp was conducted
to thermocouple location and modified the temperature. The position
of thermocouple influences if the location is already at infinite region,
because in this region there would be no temperature variation. Loca-
tions very close to surface would stabilize very fast, then an interme-
diary position is acceptable.
With respect to frequency of temperature data collection, it was
chosen 1 s. This choice does not directly influence estimation thermal
diffusivity values, as the mathematical modeling proposed by Equa-
tion (2) requires the total experiment time after stabilization of surface
temperature. However, the frequency used facilitated the identifica-
tion of condition of surface stabilization, once it is more representa-
tive to follow temperature variation and to visualize the stabilization
using small intervals of data collection.
It was not considered doing an error analysis, because the objec-
FIGURE 3 Solid dimensions
tive of this work was to introduce a simple method to estimate ther-
mal diffusivity. To evaluate the boundary conditions, first, it was selected the
type of simulation as “Heat Transfer,” indicated with green in Figure 2.
Then, in the upper bar, it was clicked on “Boundary” and “Boundary
2.3 | Simulation conditions
mode,” thus, allowing the insertion of the boundary conditions.
Once obtained the experimental data, it was calculated the thermal
The model analyzed allows constant upper surface temperature,
diffusivity of foods by means of Matlab. From this, simulations were
whereas for the other surfaces are considered adiabatic. To insert the
carried out in PDETOOL, where input parameters such as thermal dif- surface boundary condition, it was selected on the upper line of the
fusivity (α), surface temperature (Ts), initial temperature (Ti), diameter model the condition type “Dirichlet” and inserted the surface temper-
of container (D), thermocouple depth (x), and time (t) were previously ature (in Kelvin), when it became constant in the experiments, as seen
provided. The simulations had as result temperature values at 0.06 m in Figure 4.
of depth, thus it was compared with experimental data, in order to val- For adiabatic surfaces, it was selected the condition type
idate the method. “Neumann,” inserted heat flux and heat transfer coefficient nulls, as
To carry out the simulations, it is necessary to follow certain can be seen in Figure 5.
steps, first, draw the model to be studied and then select the type of Then, in the upper bar, it was selected “PDE,” “PDE Mode,” and
simulation that is desired to perform, in this case, heat transfer. after, inserted some material properties, as seen in Figure 6.
After these steps, it must configure the contour conditions and It was selected the PDE type as “Parabolic.” By the fact there is
model properties, such as density, for example. Then it is required to not intern heat source in the model and the heat transfer by convec-
configure solution parameters, which include the initial model tem- tion can be ignored, since the surface temperature is constant and
perature and time. Finally, select the desired mesh and then execute there are not changes of heat with the boundary, it was attributed
the simulation. zero to those parameters.
In the upper bar, shown in Figure 2, in “Draw,” the “Rectan- In Equation (1), if density and heat capacity were considered as
gle/Square” tool was selected, and then it was drawn a rectangle unit values, the heat conduction coefficient would become the ther-
of width equal to diameter of the aluminum container and height mal diffusivity. This alternative process was used due to the lack of a
equal to the distance from upper surface to thermocouple inside specific place to insert the diffusivity. The value of heat conduction
the flour. coefficient was obtained from the experiments.
Data of diameter, height, and rectangle centralization can be seen Last, the values of time and initial temperature were inserted, as
in Figure 3. shown in Figure 7.

FIGURE 2 Indication of upper bar

4 of 7 MARI ET AL.

FIGURE 4 Boundary condition of upper surface of cassava flour

As shown in Figure 7, the processing time was inserted such as 1. Constant surface temperature, T(0,t) = Ts:
the available time to experimental data acquisition, whereas, the initial
 
temperature defined by u(T0), it was inserted as inner temperature of T ðx,tÞ −Ts x
= erf pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð2Þ
Ti − Ts 2 /t
flour when the surface temperature became constant.
To create a mesh, it was selected in the upper bar the option
2. Constant heat flux on the surface, q00 s = q00 0:
“Mesh” and “Meshmode.” Thus, it was made a double mesh refine-
ment in order to improve the results accuracy. kðTs − Ti Þ
q00 sðtÞ = pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð3Þ
π/t
2.4 | Mathematical modeling /t0:5  2  00  
2q00 0 π −x q 0*x x
T ðx,tÞ −Ti = × exp − × erfc pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð4Þ
Temperature distribution analysis in a semi-infinite solid have been k 4/t k 2 /t
much discussed, as shown in the studies of Singh et al. (2006) and Log
(2016), especially in mathematical applications of heat transfer theory 3. Convection on the surface, − k ∂T
∂x ðx = 0Þ = h½T ∞ − T ð0, tÞ:

(Carslaw & Jaeger, 1986).       pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

Fundamentally, this solid extends to infinity in all directions, T ðx, tÞ −Ti x hx h2 / t x h /t
= erfc pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi − exp + 2 erfc pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi + ,
T ∞ − Ti 2 /t k k 2 /t k
except in one of them; therefore it is characterized by a single identifi-
ð5Þ
able surface. When there is a sudden conditions change on this sur-
face, there will be one-dimensional transient conduction inside the where, the term T(x,t) represents the temperature in the distance
solid (Incropera et al., 2006). x in relation to the surface and at instant of time t, Ts the superfi-
According to Incropera et al. (2006), a semi-infinite solid pro- cial temperature, Ti the initial temperature in x, T∞ the environ-

vides a useful idealization for many practical situations, such as ment temperature, α and k the thermal diffusivity and thermal

determination of transient heat transfer near the earth and approxi- conductivity of the material, respectively, q"0 the heat flux on the

mations for some finite geometries as a thick flat wall, besides other surface, h the convective coefficient, and finally the Gauss error

applications. function erf, and complementary error function erfc, defined

Solutions for the heat equation in transient state in a semi-infinite as: 1 − erf.

solid have been obtained for three different surface conditions, as

shown in Equations (2)–(5) (Carslaw & Jaeger, 1986):

FIGURE 5 Boundary conditions for side and bottom surfaces FIGURE 6 PDE specifications
MARI ET AL. 5 of 7

FIGURE 9 Total time of experiment to cassava flour

TABLE 1 Experimental temperatures

Temperatures ( C)
Wheat flour Cassava flour
T(x,t) 40.00 38.00
Ts 108.70 82.36
FIGURE 7 Data of iteration time and initial temperature
Ti 38.00 36.75

In this study Equation (2) has been used to determine the thermal
diffusivity of foods, because the experimental boundary conditions tendency after a certain instant of time. Hence, Equation (2) can be

were in accordance with the conditions required by this equation. used to determine the diffusivity.

The container used for this experiment is cylindrical; its diameter With respect to the time of 5,000 s after stabilization, this choice

is 0.084 m. For this case was considered a semi-infinite solid, thus, is justified because it is necessary enough time to occur temperature

there is only one-dimensional heat conduction in the direction of its variation at position of thermocouple.

length, since the lamp positioning generated action only in this direc- Furthermore, it was attributed a distance from upper surface of

tion and there was no other significant heat source that influenced 0.06 m to measure the temperature of flours. Table 1 shows the tem-

other directions. This can be seen in Equation (2), which is influenced peratures obtained via experiments and used for solution of

only by the temperature variation at x-direction. Therefore, the con-
tainer geometry does not influence on mathematical modeling of heat
transfer.
Equation (2).
Through to the data from Table 1, Equation (2) was solved by
means of Matlab, providing the thermal diffusivity values of
7.4838 × 10−8 and 7.3997 × 10−8 m2/s for wheat flour and cassava,
respectively.

3 | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 | Experimental results

To obtain the thermal diffusivity of wheat flour and cassava, it was
established a time of 5,000 s, after the stabilization of surface temper-
ature. As can be seen in Figures 8 and 9, there was a stabilization

FIGURE 10 Temperature distribution in the plane diameter × height

FIGURE 8 Total time of experiment to wheat flour to wheat flour
6 of 7 MARI ET AL.

FIGURE 13 The 3D surface plot to cassava flour

FIGURE 11 Temperature distribution in the plane diameter × height
to cassava flour
Experiments usually help and facilitate engineering students
learning, because it provides an excellent opportunity to apply theo-
retical knowledge into practice. In the same way, software is an essen-
tial tool, not only as teaching instrument, but also as principal support
for resolution of complex problems.
4 | CONC LU SION
The objective of this work was achieved, because it was shown a
practical application of heat transfer study by means of experiments,
besides inclusion of a computational tool, PDETOOL, favoring the
understanding and visualization of proposed case.
In the experiment carried out with wheat flour was obtained a
value of thermal diffusivity of 7.4838 × 10−8 m2/s and a temperature
of 40.00  C at 0.06 m of depth, after 5,000 s of stabilization point.
On the other hand, by means of simulation, it was found a tempera-
ture of 42.20  C at the same conditions, representing only 5.5% of

3.2 | Simulation using Matlab PDETOOL error, what indicates correct obtaining of diffusivity via experiment.
For cassava flour case, the experimental value of diffusivity was
After obtaining the experimental data, such as thermal diffusivity,
7.3997 × 10−8 m2/s and temperature of 38.00  C. Whereas at simula-
initial and surface temperatures, it was performed simulations
tion, it was obtained 39.40  C, resulting in an error <3.7%. Those
using PDETOOL, where the results are shown in Figures 10
results lead again to experimental validity.
and 11.
Although Figures 10 and 11 illustrate the temperature gradient
into the solid, it is not clear what the temperature on the bottom sur- 5 | NO ME NC L A TUR E
face of the model. Therefore, it was carried out a three-dimensional
α thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
surface plot to check correctly the bottom surface temperature, as
ρ density (kg/m3)
can be seen in Figures 12 and 13.
cp specific heat (J/kg/K)
Analyzing Figures 12 and 13, it can be verified that the internal
D diameter (m)
temperature of wheat and cassava flour are 315.20 K (42.20  C) and
erf Gauss error function
312.40 K (39.40  C), respectively.
erfc Gauss complementary error function
h convective coefficient (W/m2/K)
k thermal conductivity (W/m/K)
q00 0 constant heat flux on surface (W/m2)
q00 s heat flux on surface (W/m2)
t time (s)
Ti initial temperature (K)
Ts surface temperature (K)
T(x,t) temperature at x and t (K)
T∞ environment temperature (K)
x depth (m)

ORCID
FIGURE 12 The 3D surface plot to wheat flour João Mari http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0673-158X
MARI ET AL. 7 of 7

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