Multiscale Modeling of Thermomechanical Changes in Food Biopolymers During Fluid Transport Processes

Pawan Takhar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

We develop multiscale equations for food and bio materials and solve them for processes such as frying, expansion during extrusion, combined microwave and thermal heating, stress-crack prediction, among others. The equations capture physico-chemical mechanisms of transport processes and polymer thermomechanics at different scales—microscale (scale of biopolymers), mesoscale (scale of cell cytoplasm) and macroscale (scale of homogenous mixture of polymers and fluids). By integrating information at different scales into mathematical models, the quality changes in food and biomaterials can be predicted via computer simulations, which helps to optimize a given food process. The developed equations include diffusive and viscoelastic relaxation terms to couple configurational changes in polymers with fluid transport mechanisms. The slow diffusion process requires performing simulations for a long process time, but rapid viscoelastic relaxation enforces a small time-step size. This makes performing simulations using conventional desktops a very slow process that requires simplifications in the equations that are undesirable. We are currently solving our program on an XSEDE system (Stampede). The use of Blue Waters will allow us to solve the developed equations without making undesirable simplifications.