Thermal-Fluidic Enhancements To In-Line Immersion Chilling In Poultry Processing
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Author(s)
Srinivas, Saikamal
Advisor(s)
Haynes, Comas
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Abstract
Primary poultry chilling utilizes thermal cooling systems to ensure final product quality and safety. Correspondingly, the poultry processing industry is exploring paths to achieve higher energy effectiveness and efficiencies in poultry chilling, without compromising rigid quality/safety standards, by continuously upgrading chiller technologies. Therefore, this thesis addresses these aims in the area of in-line immersion chilling of poultry carcasses by identifying the issues with the incumbent process and proposing a novel approach to enhance the thermal/fluidic dynamics of the chilling process.
An applied research project was completed to make automated in-line immersion chilling a more effective alternative for the poultry chilling process. The objective was to enhance the immersion chilling of “in-line” carcasses through alternate motion patterns and the superimposition of additional kinematics upon the typical translational paths of shackled carcasses. The project had a computational and experimental core that emphasized characterizing and optimizing induced motion effects upon convective heat transfer. The computational flow study reveals secondary flow phenomena such as multiple flow separation points, wake formation, and non-uniform surface pressure/shear distributions suggesting flow “shielding” and non-uniform flow exposure for the traditional in-line immersion chilling line, which further promotes a necessary design alternative that is being proposed. An experimental test rig was configured to test varied shackle rotational superimposition patterns in contrast to the traditional pure translation process through a series of simulated chilling experiments. The experimental results indicate as much as a 34%, 41.7%, and 39.9% reduction in the chilling thermal time constants for the distinct carcass mass categories of 1.4-1.6 kg, 1.6-1.8 kg, and 1.8-2.0 kg, respectively, with further reductions being pursued in the future.
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2021-08-02
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