X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer Carcass Freezing Time Predication by Plate Freezer To By Date :X :X :X

Introduction It is informed that many carcasses leaving the freezer are not fully frozen making them unsuitable for bulk staking into the company coldstores. Hence, the carcasses needed to be hung on rails in the coldstores for 24 hours in order to achieve complete freezing. This situation costs unacceptably large amount of money as extra employee is needed. Therefore, a systematic method was developed to determine and to predict the effect of changes in freezer conditions on carcass freezing time. Plate freezer is used to run the tests and Tylose is used to imitate the thermal physical properties of the carcasses. To ensure the method used is similar to the blast freezer normally used for carcasses, the cardboard slabs are placed between the top and bottom of the Tylose and plate freezer. Investigative Work Two cardboard slabs were placed between the top and bottom of Tylose and plate freezer. The plate freezer was set at 30oC. A total of twelve thermocouples were attached on the surface and centre Tylose slab and cardboard, it was connected to the data logger. The time was recorded once it has contacted with the plate freezer. The true surface and true centre temperature were determined by the fastest and lowest slowest temperature recorded. Tylose slab was considered frozen when the true centre temperature reached -10oC, and the total time was recorded. Further details of the methods used can be referred to 280.392 Laboratory Manual section 4.4.

X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer Results and Discussion Table 1 summarises the calculated data of the freezing time of Tylose using the plate freezer. The Biot numbers were read off from the Schack Chart. t (min) 5 10 15 20 25 Fo s (C) ys Bi c (C) yc Bi 0.367557 26.04 0.9009796 0.22 29.82281 0.95936 0.21 0.735114 18.09337 0.7783378 0.27 25.84441 0.897961 0.24 1.102671 13.10899 0.701413 0.28 21.84905 0.8363 0.25 1.470228 8.961273 0.6374004 0.28 18.0192 0.777193 0.21 1.837785 5.37314 0.5820241 0.3 14.35469 0.720638 0.21 Table 1: Summarization of Fourier and Biot numbers from Schack chart

Surface heat transfer coefficient, he was calculated to be 10.868 W/m2C

freezing temperature of Tylose

40 30 20 temperature 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40 time(s) 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 surface temp centre temp ambient temp

Figure 1: Thermocouples temperature readings against time Figure 1 is tabulated to present the temperature readings of the true value of the surface, true value of the centre and the average ambient recorded at 5 minutes intervals. Thermocouple, T1 gave the true surface value as it showed the fastest freezing rate. The slowest freezing rate was shown from the thermocouple T7, hence gave the true value of the centre. The average ambient temperature was determined by averanging the thermocouple T10, T11, T12 readings. The value calculated was -32.3C. The initial temperature,in is given by the temperature of the surface at t = 0 which is 32.46C. The freezing times determined using the unmodified Planks Equation, modified Planks Equation and the Freezer programme are 2.08 hours, 3.14 hours and 3 hours respectively. Calculations can be referred to Appendix 2. The experimental time taken was 3.50 hours. The percentage errors calculated are to compare the experimental time was 40.5%, 10.3% and 14.3% respectively. The experimental error calculated was not within 5 to 15% difference. The significant errors given by the unmodified Planks equation suggests that there may be error in the model or the experiment. 2

X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer Experimental error may be due to parallax error when measuring the thickness of the Tylose. The Plank's equation (modified) and Freeze program were be more reliable for modelling the freezing time of the meat carcass.

predicted freezing time

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 0 -10 -15

temperature C

surface temp centre temp 50 100 150 200

time(min)

Figure 2: Predicted temperature against time calculated by the Freeze programme

It indicated that the experimental and predicated temperature of centre and surface of Tylose are similar but the predicated results stops at -10oC while the experimental results continue to run. The Plank's equation (modified) would be better to predict accurately because of the variables used like experimental initial and final centre temperature, temperature driving force and heat of freezing. The Plank's equation (modified) shows that the freezing time was faster than the other predications. It used the temperature when the Tylose starts to freeze instead. Besides that, the freeze program also gave a close predication of freezing time and it does not include the temperature driving force and latent heat of freezing. It is recommended to replicate the experiment using another Tylose block to prevent systematic errors and to achieve a more consistent data. The actual blast freezer air temperature at the surface of the meat carcass has to be defined because the shape and size of the carcass is very varied resulting in less consistent surface temperature. Conclusion Plank's Equation (modified) has the most accurate predication to the freezing time this is because the percentage error is smaller when compared to the other methods. By comparing the Plank's equation (modified) result with the experimental results, it shows that the freezing time is slightly shorter. References

X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer 1. Jones, J., McCarthy, O., Bronlund, J., et. al. (2013). 280.392 Process Operations and Kinetics Laboratory Manual. School of Engineering and Advanced Technology. Massey University, Palmerston North. 2. Australian Meat Technology. (1997). Refrigeration of Hot-Boned Meats. Retrieved from http://www.mintrac.com.au/diploma_fac/MTMPSR5603B%20Control%20cold%20chain%20 refrigeration%20operations/Refrigeration_Advisory_Package_07-98.pdf on 13th August

3. The Institute of Refrigeration. (1997) Economies of Meat Chilling and Freezing. Retrieved from http://www.fjb.co.uk/wpcontent/themes/fjb/publications/Economies%20of%20Meat%20Chilling%20&%20Freezing.p df on 15th August 2013.

X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer Appendix 1 Slab half thickness (m) = 0.01100 Ambient temperature (C) = -32.30 Surface heat transfer coefficient W/(mC) = 10.87 Initial temperature (C) = 32.40 Time step used in calculations (s) = 12.00

time(min) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160

surface 32.4 23.7 19.5 15.7 12.2 8.9 5.9 3.1 0.5 -0.8 -1.2 -1.5 -1.7 -1.8 -2 -2.2 -2.3 -2.4 -2.6 -2.7 -2.8 -2.9 -3 -3.2 -3.3 -3.4 -3.6 -4.1 -4.4 -4.8 -5.3 -5.9 -6.7

centre 32.4 29.4 25.1 21 17.2 13.6 10.4 7.3 4.5 2 0.4 -0.2 -0.5 -0.6 -0.6 -0.6 -0.6 -0.7 -0.7 -0.7 -0.8 -0.9 -1.1 -1.3 -1.5 -1.7 -2 -2.3 -2.7 -3.1 -3.6 -4.1 -4.8 5

X[Type the document subtitle] Lab Report 1 Plate Freezer 165 -7.8 -5.7 170 -9.1 -6.8 175 -10.7 -8.2 180 -10.8 -9.9 185 -10.9 -10.1 Table 2: Predicted temperature readings from the Freezer programme