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Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Experimental and numerical investigation of heat and mass

transfer during drying of Hayward kiwi fruits
(Actinidia Deliciosa Planch)
Ahmet Kaya a, Orhan Aydın a,*, Ibrahim Dincer b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey
b
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, ON, Canada L1H 7K4

Received 8 December 2007; received in revised form 10 February 2008; accepted 19 February 2008
Available online 26 February 2008

Abstract

In this paper we undertake an experimental and numerical study on heat and mass transfer analysis during drying of kiwi fruits. In the
experimental part, the effects of various drying conditions in terms of air velocity, temperature and relative humidity on drying charac-
teristics of kiwi fruits are investigated. In the numerical part, the external flow and temperature fields are studied using a commercial
CFD package. From these fields, the local distributions of the surface convective heat transfer coefficients for the fruits are determined
to predict the local convective mass transfer coefficients through the analogy between the thermal and concentration boundary layers
(known as the Chilton–Colburn analogy). In addition, the time-dependent temperature and moisture distributions for different cases
are obtained using the code developed to investigate heat and mass transfer aspects inside the fruits. Numerical results are then compared
with experimental data and a considerably high agreement is obtained.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Kiwi fruit; Drying characteristic; Heat and mass transfer; Experiment; Model; CFD

1. Introduction Kiwi fruit (Actinidia deliciosa Planch) is a highly nutri-

Drying is considered a simultaneous heat and mass
transfer process. Various physical, chemical and nutritional
changes occur during drying of foods and are affected by a
number of internal and external heat and mass transfer
parameters. External parameters may include temperature,
velocity and relative humidity of the drying medium (air),
while internal parameters may include density, permeabil-
ity, porosity, sorption–desorption characteristics and ther-
mophysical properties of the material being dried. In this
regard, understanding the heat and mass transfer in the
product will help to improve drying process parameters
and hence the quality.
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 (462) 377 29 74; fax: +90 (462) 325 55
26.
E-mail addresses: kaya38@ktu.edu.tr (A. Kaya), oaydin@ktu.edu.tr
(O. Aydın), Ibrahim.Dincer@uoit.ca (I. Dincer).
tional fruit due to its high level of vitamin C and its strong
antioxidant capacity due to a wide number of phytonutri-
ents including carotenoids, lutein, phenolics, flavonoids
and chlorophyll (Cassano et al., 2006). The cultivation of
kiwi fruit has expanded significantly in Turkey particularly
in the Black Sea region in recent years (Ercisli et al., 2003).
Furthermore, kiwi fruits have very short shelf-life due to
their highly perishable nature. Drying appears to be a
potential food preservation option to extend their stor-
age/shelf-life. It is a complex process involving simulta-
neous coupled transient heat and mass transfer. In
addition, many of the properties of the kiwi fruits, espe-
cially the level of vitamin C, are affected by the drying con-
ditions (Goula and Adamopoulos, 2006; Uddin et al.,
2001). Therefore, there is a need for some modeling studies
on heat and mass transfer aspects to improve drying condi-
tions and process parameters.

0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2008.02.017
324 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330
Nomenclature
cp constant pressure specific heat (J/kg K)
D moisture diffusivity (m2/s)
h heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
hm moisture transfer coefficient (m/s)
H height (m)
k thermal conductivity (W/m K)
L length (m)
Le Lewis number (a/D)
M moisture content (kg/kg, db)
n normal to surface
P pressure (Pa)
s surface coordinate
t time (h)
T temperature (K)
u, v velocities in x and y direction (m/s)
x, y coordinates
Although many experimental works are conducted on
drying of different fruits (e.g., Kaya et al., 2007a–c; Kaya
and Aydin, in press; Karim and Hawlader, 2005; Garau
et al., 2006; Doymaz, 2006; Kashaninejad et al., 2007;
Singh and Gupta, 2007), there are a few studies on the dry-
ing kinetics of kiwi fruits: Maskan (2001) studied to com-
parison of the microwave, hot air and hot air-microwave
drying methods for the processing of kiwi fruits in respect
to drying, shrinkage and rehydration characteristics
obtained by the three drying techniques. Chen et al.
(2001) established the drying kinetics parameters through
the experiments performed on pulped kiwi fruit flesh
spread onto a shallow metal tray (forming a layer) to sim-
ulate the process of making fruit leather. Simal et al.
(2005a) studied to evaluate alternate empirical or simple
phenomenological models reported in literature to simulate
the drying curves of kiwi fruits, and proposed a simple
model to accurately simulate the drying kinetics of kiwis
with different geometries and at different drying air temper-
atures. Simal et al. (2005b) also evaluated the behavior of
kiwi fruits at different ripening stages during drying with
hot air, and on the other to propose a diffusional model
to accurately simulate the drying kinetics of kiwis at differ-
ent maturity stages using different air temperatures during
dehydration. Further, the quality of the dried products was
also assessed.
Using CFD technique as a potential tool, one can solve
complex transport phenomena problems like drying in a
more cost- and time-effective manner. Some comprehensive
discussion of the recent literature studies on the numerical
studies of air drying of various moist objects has been given
by Kaya et al. (2006, 2007d, 2008). Studied include forced
air drying of some rectangular and cylindrical moist prod-
ucts. In those studies, we integrated the commercial CFD
code solutions for the external flow of drying air into our
own code solving transient temperature and moisture dis-
tributions inside the moist products.
Greek symbols
a thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
q density (kg/m3)
l dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
u relative humidity
Subscripts
AB gas phase
d drying air
dm dry matter
f fluid
i initial
wb wet base
1 free stream
In this paper, we now aim to investigate drying behavior
of kiwi fruits both experimentally and numerically. The
experimental part includes measurement of drying data of
kiwi fruits at various drying conditions (e.g., temperature,
velocity and relative humidity). The numerical part
includes the study of the external flow and temperature
fields using a commercial CFD package. From these fields,
the local distributions of the surface convective heat trans-
fer coefficients for the fruits are determined to predict the
local convective mass transfer coefficients through the anal-
ogy between the thermal and concentration boundary lay-
ers. Heat and moisture diffusion studies inside the products
are performed using our own code.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental setup and procedure
Experiments were conducted in a lab-scale convective
air-dryer as shown in Fig. 1. The experimental setup con-
sists of fan, heater, air conditioner, humidifier, fresh air
damper, air exit damper, mixing damper, drying tray, load
cell, data acquisition and computer. The convective dryer is
equipped with controllers for controlling the temperature,
airflow velocity and relative humidity. The rectangular-sec-
tioned channel dimensions are 50 cm  25 cm with
4000 cm length. In order to prevent the heat loss to the
environment, the channels are well insulated. The mass
flow rate of the drying air is regulated by a fan driven by
a variable speed motor to obtain air velocities in the range
from 0.3 to 0.9 m/s at the entrance of the channels. Drying
basket with a holding area of 40 cm  20 cm is included in
the channels. The test samples of the kiwi, which were cut
in the rectangular prism form (25 mm  25 mm  45 mm),
weighing about 500 g are placed in the drying basket. The
initial moisture content of kiwi is determined using the
OHAUS MB45 infrared moisture analyzer.
 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330 325

1- Computer, 2- Humidifier, 3-Control panel, 4- Air out damper, 5- Mixing damper, 6- Fresh air damper, 7- Fan,
8- Heater, 9- Condenser, 10- Heater, 11- Loadcell, 12- Test section, 13-Condenser unit (compressor, fan), 14-Data
acquisition system

Fig. 1. The schematic of the convective dryer.

During the experiments, the temperature changes and
sample weight were measured using microprocessor
thermometers (model HH21, Omega and accuracy
0–400 ± 0.1 °C) and load cells (model Lama, Esit, Turkey
and accuracy 10,000 ± 0.01 g), respectively. All data col-
lected were recorded in every 2.5 min for temperature and
120 min for moisture using a data logger interfaced to a
personal computer. Furthermore, the velocity in the drying
channel was continuously measured with anemometers
(hot-wire and vine type) (model 4204AM (hot-wire),
4202AM (vine), Lutron HT, Taiwan with an accuracy of
0.2–20.0 ± 0.05 m/s, while the relative humidity in the test
section was measured using a humidity/temperature meter
(4204AM model, Lutron HT, Taiwan with accuracy of
10–95 ± 1%).
2.2. Sorption isotherm
A static-gravimetric method (Keey, 1972) was used to
determine sorption isotherms of kiwi fruit slices at 25, 35,
45, 55 and 65 °C, based on the use of nine different saturated
salt solutions and distilled water (LiCl, CH3COOK, K2CO3,
MgCl2, Mg(NO3)2, NaNO3, SrCl2, NaCl, (NH4)2SO4 and
Distilled H2O). These salts possessed a wide range of relative
humidity from 9.6% to 100%, respectively.
Each solution is placed into separate glass jar. The glass
jars which are tightly closed are then kept in an oven hav-
ing a nearly isothermal condition at 25, 35, 45, 55 and
65 °C. The dried samples equilibrate with the environment
inside the jar until no discernible weight change is
observed, when it is assumed that the equilibrium moisture
is reached. It is observed from measurements using a digital
balance (with a measurement range of 0–300 g and an accu-
racy of ±0.001 g) that the equilibrium condition is usually
reached in 40 days. Finally, in the equilibrium condition,
the equilibrium moisture content is measured using the
infrared moisture analyzer.
3. Modeling
3.1. Modeling of external flow and temperature fields
The partial differential equations governing the forced
convection motion of a drying fluid in a 2-D geometry
are the mass, momentum and energy conservation equa-
tions. In the simplified case, thermophysical properties
are assumed to be constant. Considering the flow incom-
pressible, for a two-dimensional problem, the most general
form of the Navier–Stokes equations is summarized
below:
The mass conservation (i.e. continuity) equation is
ou ov
þ ¼0 ð1Þ
ox oy
326 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330

The momentum equations are 1 oT o2 T o2 T

   2  ¼ 2þ 2 ð7Þ
ou ou op o u o2 u a ot ox oy
q u þv ¼ þl þ ð2Þ
ox oy ox ox2 oy 2 1 oM o2 M o2 M
   2  ¼ 2 þ 2 ð8Þ
ov ov op o v o2 v D ot ox oy
q u þv ¼ þl þ ð3Þ
ox oy oy ox2 oy 2 with the following initial and boundary conditions for both
The energy equation is cases
 2  T ðx; y; 0Þ ¼ T i and Mðx; y; 0Þ ¼ M i
oT oT o T o2 T
u þv ¼a þ ð4Þ oT ð0; y; tÞ
ox oy ox2 oy 2 k ¼ hðT  T d Þ;
Here, the Fluent V6.1.22 CFD package based on the ox
oMð0; y; tÞ
finite volume method is used to transform and solve these D ¼ hm ðM  M d Þ at x ¼ 0 and 0 6 y 6 H
equations. The discretization scheme used is hybrid for ox
oT ðL; y; tÞ
the convective terms in the momentum and energy equa- k ¼ hðT  T d Þ;
tions, and the Simple algorithm for pressure–velocity cou- ox
oMðL; y; tÞ
pling. The mesh is generated in the Gambit 2.1.6 D ¼ hm ðM  M d Þ at x ¼ L and 0 6 y 6 H
preprocessor to produce a grid-independent solution. The ox
oT ðx; 0; tÞ oMðx; 0; tÞ
boundary conditions assume no-slip conditions for veloc- ¼0 ¼ 0 at y ¼ 0 and 0 6 x 6 L
ity, constant temperature on the surface of the material oy oy
being dried. oT ðx; H ; tÞ
k ¼ hðT  T d Þ;
Using the temperature fields measured, the local convec- oy
tive heat transfer coefficient is determined by oMðx; H ; tÞ
D ¼ hm ðM  M d Þ at y ¼ H and 0 6 x 6 L
 oy
oT 
k  ¼ hðT s  T d Þ ð5Þ
on s
where s is the coordinate along the surface and n is the nor-
mal to the surface.
After the convective heat transfer (h) is determined using
the analogy between the thermal and concentration bound-
ary layers, the convective mass transfer coefficient is now
calculated through
 
DAB Len
hm ¼ h ð6Þ
kf
where Le is the Lewis number representing a measure of
the relative thermal and concentration boundary layer
thicknesses. For most applications, it is reasonable to as-
sume a value of n = 1/3 (Incropera and De Witt, 2001).
Note that the validity of the numerical approach
employed in this study has already been exhibited else-
where (Kaya et al., 2006, 2007a–d).
3.2. Modeling of internal temperature and moisture fields
In this section, a numerical procedure was developed to
analyze heat and mass transfer through diffusion inside the
object being dried with some assumptions: (i) moisture con-
tent dependent thermophysical properties of product, (ii)
negligible shrinkage or deformation of product during dry-
ing (since it comparably lower level in convective drying
when compared to other drying techniques such as vacuum
drying and microwave drying), (iii) negligible heat genera-
tion inside product and (iv) negligible radiation effects.
Under the above listed assumptions, the following gov-
erning 2-D heat and moisture transfer equations can be
written
ð9Þ
As explained previously, it is assumed that the convec-
tive heat and mass transfer coefficients, h and hm vary along
the surface of the material. The distributions of these coef-
ficients have been shown to be predicted from the Fluent
simulation. The heat and mass transfer equations given
by Eqs. (7) and (8) under the related initial and boundary
conditions are solved using the finite difference method.
The details of the solution methodology may be found else-
where Kaya et al. (2006, 2007d, 2008).
4. Results and discussion
Before commencing data recording in the drying experi-
ments, the dryer was run for about one hour to achieve the
desired temperature and relative humidity levels of the dry-
ing air. Drying process started when set conditions for the
drying air were achieved. The initial moisture content of
kiwi fruits was measured and found to be around 81% wb
(4.26 dm). Experiments were conducted for the following
ranges of the drying conditions: temperatures at 25, 30,
40, 50 and 60 °C; velocities at 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 m/s; relative
humidity values at 25%, 40%, 55% and 70%. Drying was
continued until the equilibrium moisture content is reached.
Experiments were repeated at least three times for any
studying range in order to validate the results obtained.
Initially, the sorption isotherm representing the varia-
tion of the moisture content with the equilibrium relative
humidity, is shown in Fig. 2. As shown, the equilibrium
moisture content increases with decreasing temperature.
Such behavior may be attributed to excitation states of
molecules. At increased temperatures, the molecules might
end up with an increased state of excitation, which in turn
 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330 327

0.6 5
Equilibrium moisture content (kg H2O/kg dm)

0.5 T=25oC T=25oC

Moisture content (kg H2O/kg dm)

U=0.3 m/s
T=35oC 4 ϕ=%25
U=0.6 m/s
T=45oC U=0.9 m/s
0.4 T=55oC
T=65oC 3

0.3

2
0.2

1
0.1

0.0 0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Equilibrium relative humidity Time (h)

Fig. 2. Sorption isotherms of dried kiwi at 25, 35, 45, 55 and 65 °C, 5
respectively.
T=25oC U=0.3 m/s

Moisture content (kg H2O/kg dm)

4 T=30oC ϕ=25%
T=40oC
results in increasing their distance apart and decreasing the
T=50oC
attractive forces between them. This leads to a decrease in T=60oC
3
the degree of water sorption at a given relative humidity
with increasing temperature. Such behavior is clearly
explained elsewhere (Jamali et al., 2006). 2
The variations of the moisture content with drying time
for varying values of the drying conditions in terms of tem-
1
perature, velocity and relative humidity of the drying air
were determined. Fig. 3a shows effect of air velocity on the
time-dependent moisture content variation at u = 25% 0
and Td = 25 °C. An increase in the velocity of the drying 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

air results in decreasing drying times as a result of increasing Time (h)

convective heat and mass transfer coefficients between the 5
drying air and the fruit. As expected, increasing the temper-
ature of the drying air decreases the total drying time since ϕ=%70 T=25oC
Moisture content (kg H2O/kg dm)

4 ϕ=%55 U=0.3 m/s

the heat transfer rate increases. The influence of the temper- ϕ=%40
ature on the drying behavior is better seen from Fig. 3b. Due ϕ=%25

to the increasing mass transfer, decreasing the value for u 3

decreased the total drying time (Fig. 3c). Decreasing the
value for u increased the difference between the concentra-
2
tions of water in the drying air and the product.
The time-dependent drying rate, DR, of the kiwi fruit
during drying process can be determined using the follow- 1
ing equation:
M t  M tþDt
DR ¼ ð10Þ 0
Dt 0 20 40 60 80 100

which is graphically shown in Fig. 4 with varying velocity, Time (h)

temperature and relative humidity of the drying air, respec- Fig. 3. The variation of the moisture content with t for various Ud values
tively. Due to the moisture diffusion process, the drying at Td = 25 °C and u = 25% (a), the variation of the moisture content with
rate decreases with time and becomes time-dependent. t for various Td values at Ud = 0.3 m/s and u = 25% (b), the variation of
The Kiwi fruit tested did not exhibit a constant rate period the moisture content with t for various u values at Ud = 0.3 m/s and
Td = 25 °C (c).
of drying (Fig. 4). This clearly shows that the resistance to
the moisture diffusion within the material was negligible
small. If there was a considerable resistance, one would diffusion is the predominant mechanism of mass transfer.
end up with reasonably long constant-rate period. Appar- From Fig. 4a, it can be seen that for higher air velocity dry-
ently, here in this case, the entire drying process occurred ing rate is also higher. For the effect of the temperature of
in the falling rate period, during which internal molecular the drying fluid, similar behaviors were obtained (Fig. 4b).
328 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330

0.25 humidity on the drying rate. As expected decreasing the rel-

ative humidity intensifies drying rate. As seen from Fig. 4,
U=0.3 m/s
temperature and relative humidity of the drying air have
0.20 T=25oC
U=0.6 m/s ϕ=25%
U=0.9 m/s

0.15
DR

0.10

0.05

0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Time (h)

b 1.0
T=25oC U=0.3 m/s
T=30oC ϕ=40%
T=40oC
0.8
T=50oC
T=60oC
Fig. 5. Streamlines (a) and static temperature contours (b) around the
0.6
object for Ud = 0.3 m/s and Td = 50 °C.
DR

0.4
a 50
b
T=50oC
U=0.3 m/s
0.2
U=0.6 m/s a c
40 U=0.9 m/s

0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 30
h (W/m2K)

a b c
Time (h)

c 0.20 20

ϕ=70% U=0.3 m/s

ϕ=55% T=25oC 10
0.15 ϕ=40%
ϕ=25%

0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
DR

0.10
s (m)

0.04
b T=50oC
b
0.05
U=0.3 m/s
U=0.6 m/s a c
U=0.9 m/s
0.03
0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100
a b c
hm (m/s)

Time (h)
0.02

Fig. 4. The influence of Ud on the variation of the drying rate with t at

Td = 25 °C and u = 25% (a), the influence of Td on the variation of the
drying rate with t at Ud = 0.3 m/s and u = 25% (b), the influence of u on
0.01
the variation of the drying rate with t at Ud = 0.3 m/s and Td = 25 °C (c).

For higher values of the moisture content, increase in

drying temperature resulted in higher drying rate. This 0.00
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
can be explained by an increasing temperature difference
s (m)
between the drying air and the product and in follows
water migration. Fig. 4c shows the influence of relative Fig. 6. Variation of h (a) and hm (b) along the surface.
 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330 329

higher influence on the drying rate of kiwi fruit than the
velocity of the drying air.
In the numerical part, the external flow and temperature
fields are predicted around the rectangular object
(25 mm  25 mm  45 mm) under the process of drying
via the Fluent CFD code. The moist object is assumed to
have constant wall temperature, Ti = 4 °C (since the kiwi
samples to be dried was kept in a refrigerator at this tem-
perature before drying) and constant wall moisture con-
tent, Mi = 4.26 kg/kg (db). The following correlations by
various researchers (as summarized in Dincer, 1997) are
used to calculate the thermal diffusivity, thermal conductiv-
ity and specific heat for the kiwi fruit considered:
For thermal diffusivity: a ¼ ð0:057363M þ 0:000288ðT þ
273ÞÞ  106 m2/s,
For thermal conductivity: k ¼ ð0:148 þ 0:493MÞ W/m K,
For constant-pressure specific heat: cp ¼ ð0:837þ
1:256MÞ  1000 J/kg K, and
The moisture diffusivity is take as D = 7.13  1010 m2/s
(Simal et al., 2005a).
At the inlet, the following values are considered for the
drying air: Td = 50 °C (323 K); Ud = 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 m/s
and dry air conditions with u = 0.0%. As an example case,
Figs. 5a and b illustrate the streamlines and static tempera-
ture contours around the object. As seen from Fig. 5a, wake
or vortex shedding region behind the object is observed when
the drying fluid passes through it. The temperature gradients
along the surface of the object are not uniform which will
result in non-uniform convective heat transfer coefficient
distributions along it. Using Eq. (5), the variation of the con-
vective heat transfer coefficient, h along the surface of the
object is obtained for each airflow velocities and shown in
Fig. 6a. Then, using this knowledge, the variation of the con-
vective mass transfer coefficient, hm along the surface of the
object can be easily determined from Eq. (6), which is illus-
trated in Fig. 6b. As seen from Figs. 6a and b, for the convec-
tion heat and mass transfer coefficients, higher values are
obtained at the left side wall due to the upstream of the dry-
ing air while lower values are observed at the right side wall
due to the vortex shedding. Furthermore, it can be seen from
Figs 6a and b, increasing the airflow velocity increases the
local heat and moisture transfer coefficients.
In addition, the temperature and moisture fields inside
the product are predicted at different times using the code
developed by the authors. As explained before, at this
point, the local distributions of the convective heat and
mass transfer coefficients are used which were obtained
previously in the boundary conditions. The temperature
a 330
320
310 Experimental U=0.3 m/s
Numerical T=323 K
T (K)

300
a 0.025

290

280
Height (m)

0.0125
270
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (min)

5
0
b
0 0.015 0.03 0.045
Moisture content (kg H2O/kg dm)

Length (m) Experimental U=0.3 m/s

4 T=323 K
Numerical

b 0.025

3
Height (m)

2
0.0125

0
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
0 0.015 0.03 0.045
Length (m) Time (h)

Fig. 7. Temperature distribution inside the object at 10 min (a) and Fig. 8. Comparison between the calculated and measured center temper-
moisture distribution inside the object at 30 min (b) for Ud = 0.3 m/s and ature (a) and dimensionless moisture (b) distributions in the rectangular
Td = 50 °C. kiwi fruits.
330 A. Kaya et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 88 (2008) 323–330
inside the object increases with an increase in the drying
time since the temperature of the drying air is higher than
that of the object. As a result of these transient and non-
uniform temperature distributions, the moisture diffusivity
which depends on the temperature will vary and in turn the
rate of the moisture diffusion inside the object. Figs. 7a and
b show the temperature and moisture distributions inside
the object at 10 min for temperature and 30 min for mois-
ture, respectively. As seen in the figure, the distributions
appear not to be symmetrical. Higher temperature and
moisture gradients are obtained at the left side wall due
to the upstream of the drying air.
Fig. 8a shows the measured and predicted temperature
values at the center inside the material with time at air
velocity of 0.3 m/s, temperature 50 °C and relative humid-
ity u = 25%. As seen, the predicted and measured values of
the temperature at the center agree reasonably well. Simi-
larly, the comparison between the predicted and measured
moisture distributions at the center is shown in Fig. 8b. As
seen from the figure, a satisfactory agreement is observed
again. Consequently, this validates the methodology devel-
oped in this study.
5. Conclusions
In this paper a numerical study of heat and mass transfer
during drying of kiwi fruits has been done in addition to
experimental measurements taken for the respective drying
conditions. The experimental part has included a detailed
investigation of the effects of various drying conditions in
terms of air velocity, temperature and relative humidity on
drying characteristics of kiwi fruits. The numerical part
studied the external flow and temperature fields using a com-
mercial CFD package. From these fields, the local distribu-
tions of the surface convective heat transfer coefficients for
the fruits are determined to predict the local convective mass
transfer coefficients through the analogy between the ther-
mal and concentration boundary layers. Furthermore, the
time-dependent temperature and moisture distributions
for different cases are obtained using the code developed
to investigate heat and mass transfer aspects inside the
fruits. Numerical findings are then compared with the exper-
imental data, resulted in a considerably high agreement.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support provided
by Karadeniz Technical University Research Fund under
Grant No. 2004.112.003.01 and the Turkish Republic
Prime Ministry State Planning Organization (DPT) under
Grant No. 2003K120750.
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