A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Study for Heating Bacterial Culture Media and Effect of Natural Convection on Total Heat Flux
Sebahattin Serhat Turgut, Baris Sarihan, Dudu Yildiz, Erkan Karacabey, and Erdogan Kucukoner
Suleyman Demirel University Engineering Faculty, Food Engineering Department, Isparta, Turkey
Abstract—In the present study, a predictive model was developed for heating bacterial culture medias. One of the most common medium for microbiological studies, Plate Count Agar (PCA) was used in the experimental studies and non-linear partial differential equations for coupled heat and momentum transfer were solved by finite element model using COMSOL Multiphysics®. Temperature of PCA solution was recorded at three different positions and it was observed that the predicted temperature values were found to be in a good agreement compared to experimental ones according to root mean square errors calculated. Natural convection has shown a dominant impact on total heat transfer and the developed model was found to have convincing performance to explain the temperature variation during heating process and that is important to evaluate further processes like sterilization applied for microbiological studies.
Index Terms—COMSOL, finite element approach, PCA agar, sterilization, temperature and velocity profilesCite: Sebahattin Serhat Turgut, Baris Sarihan, Dudu Yildiz, Erkan Karacabey, and Erdogan Kucukoner, "A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Study for Heating Bacterial Culture Media and Effect of Natural Convection on Total Heat Flux," International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 183-189, September 2019. doi: 10.18178/ijfe.5.3.183-189