Author(s)

A.J. Davies, W. Toutip and M.C. Bartholomew-Biggs

Abstract

In many circumstances in applied engineering and science, materials are heated electrically. This so-called ohmic heating, or Joule heating, is frequently used in the food processing industry as a method of food sterilisation. It is important to know not only that temperatures sufficient to kill bacteria have been reached but that the food material itself is not degraded. Such problems are highly non- linear since the thermal and electrical properties of food materials are tempera- ture dependent. When the thermal and electrical conductivity both depend on the temperature the resulting model of ohmic heating comprises a pair of non- linear coupled partial differential equations. Each of the equations may be writ- ten in Poisson-type form and as such are ideally-suited to a solution using the dual

Keywords