Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

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Journal of Food Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Numerical and experimental study of airflow resistance across an array of

sliced food items during drying
Petros Demissie Tegenaw a, *, Pieter Verboven b, Maarten Vanierschot a
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Celestijnenlaan 300, Leuven, B-3001, Belgium
b
Division of Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors (MeBioS), Willem de Croylaan 42, Leuven, B-3001, Belgium

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Characterization of the airflow across food items involves identification of their viscous and inertial resistances.
Airflow resistance This paper presents an extensive numerical and experimental study to determine the resistances of food items
Sweet potato placed in an array. The experimental study used an array of sliced sweet potato with different initial slice di­
Porous media formulation
ameters. The airflow resistance of the array was determined from a series of wind tunnel measurements. The
CFD
Dehydration
sliced arrays were dehydrated and digital images were taken to determine the intermediate array-porosity. The
numerical study was based on CFD modeling of the airflow across the disc arrays. In the simulations, the size of
each individual disc in the array was gradually decreased to reproduce the array-porosity change similar to the
experimental dehydration. The airflow resistance of the array was found to be dominated by inertial effects. The
influence of geometrical parameters on the inertial resistance coefficient was also studied. Dimensional analysis
showed that the inertial resistance was exponentially decaying with array-porosity. To describe this relationship,
a model equation was proposed that fitted very well with both the experimental and numerical results. Finally,
the findings of the current study were used in a porous media based modeling and simulation of the momentum
transport in the dehydration of an array of sliced food items in a solar dryer.

1. Introduction 2011). The cross-flow configuration is observed in most solar food

Food items are dried to prevent perishability and to avail them for
the processing industry in a better condition. Convective air-drying is
the most frequently used dehydration operation in the food industry
(Veleşcu et al., 2013; Doymaz, 2004). In convective sliced food dehy­
dration, the drying airflow pattern near the slices can be identified as
co-flow and cross-flow, as shown in Fig. 1, or a combination of the two.
In cross-flow configuration, the drying airflow experiences a higher
resistance from the sliced food items compared to the one in a co-flow
configuration. However, the cross-flow configuration is found to have
a more favourable impact on the airflow distribution and heating uni­
formity (Udomkun et al., 2015). Besides dehydration, the cross-flow
configuration is encountered in various other food processing applica­
tions such as refrigeration, storage, and transport. The engineering
design, operation, optimization, and control of these processes are
dependent on the magnitude and distribution of the airflow resistance.
Moreover, in food dehydration applications, the final quality of the dried
food product is also affected by the magnitude and distribution of the
airflow resistance (Verboven et al., 2004; Amanlou and Zomorodian,
drying units developed recently (Getahun et al., 2021). Thus, airflow
resistance determination across food items placed in an array is vital for
engineering and optimization of existing or newly designed food pro­
cessing units. The airflow resistance and factors affecting it are reported
for flows across various fruits and vegetables, such as root and bulb
(Neale and Messer, 1976), potatoes (Irvine et al., 1993), apples and
chicory (Verboven et al., 2004), pistachio nuts (Kashaninejad and Tabil,
2009), and green figs (Amanlou and Zomorodian, 2011). It is also
delineated for different food items for example onion (Rapusas et al.,
1995) and garlic (Madamba et al., 1994). These food items are raw bulks
with spherical or nearly spherical shapes, or completely random in the
case of onion and garlic. Nevertheless, no such data have been portrayed
in the literature or compiled in the ASABE standard D272.3 (Resistance
to Airflow of, 2016) for a sliced array of circular food items as shown in
Fig. 1b, although this flow configuration is commonly encountered in,
amongst others, solar dehydration (Belessiotis and Delyannis, 2011;
Tegenaw et al., 2019a, 2019b).
The airflow resistance correlations are often presented in terms of a
total pressure drop, ΔP as given by the Darcy-Forchheimer, Equation (1)

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: petros.tegenaw@kuleuven.be (P.D. Tegenaw).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2021.110739
Received 15 March 2021; Received in revised form 4 July 2021; Accepted 5 July 2021
Available online 8 July 2021
0260-8774/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P.D. Tegenaw et al.
Fig. 1. Common airflow pattern configurations in sliced food dehydration.
(Verboven et al., 2004, 2006; Amanlou and Zomorodian, 2011; Ye et al.,
2016; Guo et al., 2013; Malavasi et al., 2012),
η Once the relationship between airflow resistance and array-porosity
ΔP = ξ1 ρa V 2 + ξ2 V, (1)
d
where ρa = 1.225 kg/m3 is the air density, η = 1.802 × 10− 5 Pa s the air
dynamic viscosity at a temperature and pressure of 20 ◦ C and 1 atm,
respectively, (Cengel, 2014), d (m) the disc diameter, and V (ms) is the
airflow velocity. The total resistance is treated as the sum of inertial and
viscous resistance terms, with their non dimensional coefficients, ξ1 and
ξ2, respectively. These coefficients were found to be dependent on
physical parameters such as the diameter, bulk porosity, stacking
pattern, fluid property, product shape, roughness, and confinement ratio
(Verboven et al., 2004, 2006). The exact effect of those physical pa­
rameters on the coefficients is given by Ergun’s equation for a bulk of
spherical or nearly spherical food items (Ergun and Orning, 1949). For
such shaped food items, Ergun’s equation and its subsequent modifica­
tions have shown that the coefficients are a function of the bulk porosity
(Ergun and Orning, 1949; Delele, 2009; van der Sman, 2002; Verboven
et al., 2004). However, for sliced food items, to the authors’ knowledge,
there are no such relations expressing the coefficients in Equation (1), in
terms of geometrical parameters like bulk porosity.
The relative dominance of the two terms (viscous and inertial) in
Equation (1) determines how momentum transport is modeled. In
literature, a porous medium Reynolds number (Rep), a ratio of inertial
term to viscous term, was reported to be a quantitative relation to judge
on the relative importance of the two terms (Verboven et al., 2006;
Gruyters et al., 2018). At high flow speeds, Rep ≫ 1, the pressure drop is
dominated by inertial effects (first term of Equation (1)) while at very
low flow speeds Rep ≪ 1 as in the case of Stokes or creeping flow re­
gimes, the viscous effects become dominant (second term of Equation
(1)) (Verboven et al., 2006; van der Sman, 2002).
During dehydration of sliced food items, the moisture content re­
duces significantly, this results in shrinkage of an individual slice due to
the contraction of the visco-elastic matrix (Yadollahinia and Jahangiri,
2009). Thus, the relative open space between the individual slices,
array-porosity, will change when sliced food items are dried by arran­
ging them in an array. This will in turn affect airflow resistance of the
array of sliced food items. For a stack of green figs the change in bulk
porosity was found to affect airflow resistance notably (Amanlou and
Zomorodian, 2011). Therefore, to determine the relationship between
the changes in the resistance with array-porosity, the associated
shrinkage needs to be identified. Shrinkage in fruits and vegetables has
been studied by using prediction models that can be categorized as
empirical, theoretical, and physics-based models (Mahiuddin et al.,
2018). Recently, direct experimental measurements involving computer
vision have been employed to determine shrinkage during dehydration
(Yadollahinia and Jahangiri, 2009; Singh and Talukdar, 2019; Sun et al.,
2019). Specifically, the shrinkage of sliced sweet potatoes during
2
Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739
combined infrared and hot air drying was investigated using an optical
imaging method (Onwude et al., 2018, 2019).
changes is determined, it can be used in porous media based Compu­
tational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and simulations of macro-scale
transport phenomena. In the porous media approach, the food bulk is
regarded as a porous zone through which simultaneous heat and mass
transfer takes place (Darabi et al., 2015; Amanlou and Zomorodian,
2010; Delele, 2009; Getahun et al., 2017a, 2017b; Delele et al., 2012).
This modeling approach uses a space averaging technique to model the
phenomena with reasonable computational effort (Verboven et al.,
2006). It was successfully used in the CFD simulation of a tray drier of
kenaf core (Misha et al., 2013), corn (Sanghi et al., 2018), and deep-bed
paddy (Ranjbaran et al., 2014). Moreover, it is incorporated in most
commercial codes and the inputs needed are the airflow resistance co­
efficients and porosity. Thus, determining these coefficients for an array
of food slices will play a vital role in the porous media based CFD
modeling of such food items. This involves obtaining the resistance co­
efficients as presented in Equation (1).
The main objectives of this research are, (1) to determine the airflow
resistance for flows across an array of sliced food items numerically and
experimentally, (2) to study the effect of shrinkage, due to dehydration,
on the airflow resistance, (3) to develop a relationship between the
resistance coefficients and geometrical parameters like initial disc
diameter and array-porosity, and (4) to show the application of the
model in a macro-scale CFD simulation of a solar dryer taken from
literature.
2. Material and methods
To determine the resistance coefficients as shown in Equation (1) for
sliced food items, both experimental and numerical studies were per­
formed. In the experimental study two initial slice diameters (33.3 and
40 mm) were used and in the numerical study three (33.3, 40, and 50
mm).
2.1. Laboratory experiments on sweet potato slices
2.1.1. Sample preparation
White fleshed sweet potato was purchased from local farmers around
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. The samples were washed with pure water to
remove the soil, and the surface was dried afterwards. The samples were
stored in an incubator at a temperature set point of 13 ◦ C to prevent
germination (Devereau, 1994). The average initial moisture content of
the sweet potato, obtained by drying 24 random samples of slices at a
temperature of 105 ◦ C for 48 h, was 2.53 g of water per gram of dry
matter. Slices with 4 mm thickness were cut using a professional slice
cutter (EH 158-L, Graef, Germany) from the sweet potato. Then, two
experimental sets with different initial slice diameter were prepared:
P.D. Tegenaw et al. Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

Fig. 2. A 2D representation of the experimental array of sliced sweet potatoes with different initial slice diameters. a) Set-I: diameter 33 mm (6 × 6) and b) Set-II:
diameter 40 mm (5 × 5).

Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the experimental set up for air flow resis­
tance measurements (Side-view): ①- Centrifugal fan, ②- Airflow speed mea­
surement, ③- Wind tunnel, ④- Array of sliced sweet potato, ⑤- Measurement
channel, and ⑥data logger. A and B are pressure taps. All dimensions are
in meter.

set-I with 36 (6 × 6) discs of 33 mm diameter, and set-II with 25 (5 × 5)

discs of 40 mm diameter. The sliced discs were packed in between a wire
mesh (20 mm × 20 mm size) as shown in Fig. 2. This made sure that the
slices stay in place throughout the drying and subsequent airflow
resistance measurements. The airflow resistance of the open wire mesh
was measured and subtracted from the pressure drop measurements.
However, it was found that the resistance is much lower compared to the
one of the full pack as shown in Fig. 2. To be more specific, the pressure
drop measured at the highest airflow speed (around 2 m/s) was found to
be only 1.1 Pa.

2.1.2. Experimental setup

Fig. 3 shows a schematic representation of the test set up. The airflow
was created by a centrifugal fan ①driven by a frequency controller. In Fig. 4. A step by step representation of the procedure followed to determine
order to remove fluctuations and to create a uniform flow velocity pressure drops at each dehydration level.
profile with a thin boundary layer, a wind tunnel ③was employed. The
same wind tunnel was reported to have a very low turbulence intensity
B, see Fig. 3) were used to measure the change in pressure, ΔP between
of 0.088% at a mean velocity of 1.73 m/s with a uniformity of 99.8%
the upwind and downstream side. Pressure tapping point B was carefully
(Vanierschot et al., 2013). A 1.5 m long test channel with a squared cross
chosen at 0.25 m from the outlet of the test section, avoiding the wake of
section (0.2 m × 0.2 m) ⑤was used. The sliced sweet potatoes, as packed
the airflow in the downwind side. At each pressure tapping location, the
in Fig. 2, were placed at 0.25 m from the inlet of the test channel
pressure was tapped from four sides of the square cross section. The four
covering the entire cross section ④. Two pressure tapping points (A and
taps were interconnected ensuring the measurement of the average cross

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P.D. Tegenaw et al. Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

Table 1
The diameters of the individual discs (di) constituting the array as used in the
CFD simulation sets (I, II, and III) given in millimeters. The respective array-
porosity (ϵ) in percentage is determined using Equation (2).
CFD Set array-porosity, %

I (6 by 6) II (5 by 5) III (4 by 4)

1 33.3 40 50 21.5
2 30.1 36.1 45.1 36.0
3 27.2 32.6 40.7 47.9
4 24.5 29.4 36.8 57.6
5 22.1 26.5 33.2 65.4

array-porosity, ϵ was then calculated as in Equation (2), where n was 36

Fig. 5. A representative 3D computational grid used in the CFD modeling (ø =
50 mm) with closeup views showing the grid refinements made at
the interfaces.
sectional value. The airflow velocity at the inlet of the channel was
measured by a direction independent flow velocity probe ②(hot wire
anemometer, Testo, Ternat, Belgium) with a velocity range from 0 to 10
m/s and an accuracy of ±(0.03 m/s + 5% measured value). The pressure
drop was measured by a pressure transducer ⑥(Testo480, Testo, Ternat,
Belgium) having a range from − 100 to 100 hPa with an accuracy ±
(0.3 Pa + 1% measured value).
2.1.3. Measurement procedure
The pressure drop measurements were taken for an airflow velocity
range from 0 to 2 m/s. This range ensures coverage of airflow velocities
used in most convective food drying (Velić et al., 2004), and cooling
(Delele, 2009; Defraeye et al., 2013) applications. The airflow resistance
of the array of sliced sweet potato was characterised through a six step
procedure. First, the array was placed in the measurement channel.
Second, the airflow speed was set to a small value around 0.25 m/s.
Third, fifteen samples were recorded at a frequency of 1 Hz. Fourth, the
airflow speed was increased step by step up to 2 m/s, and at each step
pressure measurements were recorded. Fifth, the sample was taken out
of the measurement channel and the digital images were taken as
described in section 2.1.4. Sixth, the sample array of sliced sweet potato
was placed in an electric oven at 85 ◦ C and dried for about 10–20 min.
Then, the entire procedure was repeated after each oven drying until the
pressure drop measured at the highest airflow speed was below 10 Pa.
Fig. 4 depicts a step by step procedure followed in the pressure drop
experiments. The air temperature during the pressure drop measure­
ments varies from run to run in a range between 18 ◦ C and 21 ◦ C.
2.1.4. Determination of the array-porosity
The flow resistance measurements were performed at various
dehydration points of the packed array of sliced sweet potato. After each
airflow resistance measurement, the two experimental sets (set-I and set-
II) were dried as described in section 2.1.3. As a consequence of this
dehydration there was mechanical deformation in the form of shrinkage,
which increases the array-porosity of the array of slices. To quantify the
array-porosity, a digital image of the sample was taken by a 16 MP BSI
CMOS camera at a given dehydration stage. The image pre-processing
and segmentation was performed according to procedures outlined in
(Mery and Pedreschi, 2005; Pedreschi et al., 2006). Then, from the
pre-processed image, the total size of the image At, and radii of each
slice, ri was extracted in pixels using a MATLAB routine. The
and 25 for experiment set-I and set-II, respectively. The initial
array-porosity is around ϵ0 = 21%. This value is constant for any initial
slice diameter forming a squared array, as also reported by Beasley et al.
(Beasley and Clark, 1984).
∑n 2
At − i=1 π r i
ϵ= (2)
At
2.1.5. Data analysis
Airflow resistance data for sliced sweet potato at different stages of
drying were fitted to Equation (1) using a linear regression model. The
resulting values of the constants ξ1 and ξ2 at those stages were deter­
mined and plotted against the corresponding array-porosity from
Equation (2). Several statistical criteria such as the coefficient of
determination r2, root mean square error (RMSE) and mean relative
percentage deviation modulus (P%) were used to evaluate the goodness
of fit.
2.2. CFD model formulation
2.2.1. Computational domain and boundary conditions
A 3D symmetric computational domain with discs of 50 mm is shown
in Fig. 5. It was constructed in one to one scale with a quarter of the
measurement channel. The symmetry boundary condition was moti­
vated owing to the square cross section of the measurement channel and
the discs arrangement inside. Moreover, the wind tunnel used in this
study has shown 99.8% uniformity ensuring a mirrored flow distribution
along the symmetry planes. The airflow field was simulated at four
different inlet velocities (0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 m/s), prescribed normal to the
inlet face. A pressure outlet with zero static pressure was imposed at the
outlet. The measurement channel walls and the disc surfaces were
treated as no-slip walls.
In this part of the study, three initial disc diameters were investigated
namely CFD set-I, set-II and set-III with initial disc diameters (d0) of
33.3, 40 and 50 mm, respectively. These initial disc diameters were then
successively reduced to mimic shrinkage due to dehydration. The indi­
vidual disc diameter (di) was reduced geometrically as
di = d0 Ri+1 , (3)
where the common reduction ratio (R), the amount by which the
dimension of the discs reduces, was chosen to be 95%. The real sizes of
the individual discs used in the simulations are reported in Table 1. The
corresponding array-porosity ε, representing the relative open space,
was thus changed from 21.5% to 65.4% according to Equation (2). The
range of array-porosity presented here covers the entire shrinkage range
for potato slices reported by Alireza and Mehdi (Yadollahinia and
Jahangiri, 2009).
2.2.2. Computational grid
A quad-dominant unstructured mesh was generated on the disc
surfaces and on the interstitial spaces between them (column 1 in Fig. 6),
while in columns 2 to 5 of the same figure, structured meshes were

4
P.D. Tegenaw et al. Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

Fig. 6. Surface grids used for the 3 CFD modeled sets with the successive reduction in the diameter of the discs in the array.

applied on the disc surfaces, keeping the interstitial space unstructured.

Table 2
These meshes were extruded further up to the inlet and outlet of the
The predicted area weighted average pressure (Pa) from the four turbulence
computational domain. The entire disc surfaces interacting with the
models and the respective percent deviation (shown in brackets) as compared to
fluid flow were refined ensuring a maximum computed y+ at the highest
the validation measurements at four inlet velocities (for a disc diameter of 40
flow rates to be 4.1. Thus, implementation of a low Reynolds number mm).
formulation (low-Re) was guaranteed for better resolving the boundary
m Experiment Simulated turbulence models
layer close to the interaction regions (Defraeye and Radu, 2017; Cac­ V0 ( )
s
cavale et al., 2016). RNG k-ε Realizable k- SST k-ω Standard k-
To avoid highly skewed mesh elements near the tangent points, small ε ε

fillets with a radius of 0.01 mm were introduced as shown in Fig. 5. 0.5 4.0 4.8 (18.2) 4.9 (20.8) 5.7 (42.4) 5.15 (28.1)
These simplifications in the disc geometry were applied only for simu­ 1 16.7 19.4 20.6 (23.3) 23.5 19.4 (16.4)
(16.4) (40.5)
lations involving the initial disc diameters (row 1 in Table 1 and column 1.5 40.3 45.2 47.6 (18.2) 53.2 (32) 44.6 (10.7)
1 in Fig. 6) as only in those cases the discs touched each other. A similar (12.2)
approach was used to perform a highly resolved CFD simulations of fluid 2 71.9 83 (15.5) 88.2 (22.7) 95 (32.1) 78.7 (9.5)
flow in the interstitial spaces of densely packed spheres representing
sand grains (Knight, 2018).
2.2.4. Numerical simulation details
The finite volume based numerical solutions of Equations (4) and (5)
2.2.3. Governing equations
were calculated using ANSYS Fluent 2020 R1. The equations were dis­
The governing equations for predicting the flow field within the
cretized using a second order upwind scheme. The turbulent nature of
computational domain were derived from mass and momentum con­
the simulated airflow regimes requires usage of appropriate turbulence
servation principles. The airflow was modeled using a steady 3D
models. In this study, pressure drop predictions of four commonly used
Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) approach for incompressible
turbulence models (standard k − ε, RNG k − ε, realizable k − ε, and k − ω
fluid, which reads as:
SST) were compared against a validation experiment. In all these tur­
Mass conservation:
bulence models, a low-Re formulation was implemented rather than
→
∇⋅V = 0 (4) wall functions to fully resolve the boundary layer. As outlined in Table 2,
the standard k − ε model shows the smallest deviation with the experi­
and momentum conservation: mental measurements. Therefore, it was used in all the simulations
→→ (μ ( → →T ) ) ∇Pm carried out. Nevertheless, significant differences can be observed,
(5)
eff
∇⋅(V V ) − ∇⋅ ∇V + ∇V
ρ
=− ,
ρ especially for the low flow rates. These differences are attributed to the
isotropic turbulent viscosity assumption of the turbulence models. As
( ) the pressure drop across the discs is mainly inertial related, the structure
kg
where the effective viscosity, μeff m.s is the sum of the dynamic and of the wake flows behind the discs plays a significant role. These wakes
turbulent viscosity, Pm = P + 2/3ρk (Pa) is the modified pressure, and V are highly anisotropic and hence the isotropic viscosity assumption in­
(ms) the airflow velocity. The density and viscosity were taken as those of troduces discrepancies, especially at low flow rates. To overcome this
air at 20 ◦ C from Cengel (2014). discrepancy and capture the wake in a better accuracy, the more

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P.D. Tegenaw et al. Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

Table 3 Thus, the medium grid and its grid topology were implemented in all the
Grid independence analysis of the prediction of pressure drop using the GCI from simulations carried out.
m
simulations at V0 = 2 and at V0 = 0.5 , respectively.
s
3. Results and discussion
Number of Area weighted average pressure (Pa) Maximum GCI
elements (%)
V0 = V0 = V0 = V0 = 3.1. Experimental study of airflow resistance across the array of sliced
m m m m
0.5
s
1
s
1.5
s
2
s sweet potato
Coarse 5.11 19.78 43.82 77.20 –
(2054870) As dehydration in an electric oven proceeds, mechanical deforma­
Medium 5.15 20.09 44.63 78.74 4.39 tion in the form of shrinkage of the sweet potato slices was observed.
(3,570,992) This results in an increase of the array-porosity of the array, which in
Fine (8,032,967) 5.16 20.10 44.67 78.80 0.20
turn significantly affects the airflow resistance. This effect was presented
as a pressure drop versus airflow velocity in Fig. 7 for experimental set-I
computationally intensive large eddy simulations can be employed. The and set-II. The experimental data were fitted to the Darcy-Forchheimer
SIMPLEC algorithm was used for pressure-velocity coupling. The nu­ equation given by Equation (1) at each array-porosity level by a non-
merical solutions were considered converged when the unscaled resid­ linear regression analysis. The R2 for each test condition exceeded
ual dropped to a value 10− 6 for all equations. 0.99 as shown in Table 4. Thus, equation (1) was found to represent the
A grid independence analysis was carried out with three different experimental results with sufficient accuracy, over the entire range of
computational grids (coarse, medium and fine) for the flow through an airflow velocities studied.
array of discs with a diameter of 40 mm. The grids were constructed by The airflow resistance across the slices of sweet potato is increases
successive refining in all directions for reporting the discretization error with increasing airflow velocity. Moreover, if the airflow velocity is
in terms of the grid convergence index (GCI) (Roache, 1994). The fixed, it is found to be decreasing as array-porosity increases. This is
pressure drop predictions for a range of inlet velocities from 0.5 to 2 m/s because, at a fixed airflow velocity, the higher the amount of void
were used for the analysis. As summarized in Table 3, the maximum spaces, the lower the viscous and the inertial resistances by the slices,
discretization error was found to be about 4.39% between the course which results in lower flow energy losses.
and medium grid, and about 0.2% between the medium and fine grid. Table 4 summarizes the values of the dimensionless inertial and
viscous coefficients ξ1 and ξ2 respectively for the two experimental sets.

Fig. 7. The effect of array-porosity on the airflow resistance of the slices as determined from experimental measurements for a) experimental set I (ød0 = 33 mm),
and b) experimental set II (ød0 = 40 mm): Note: In the legends, the values indicated in % represent array-porosity (ϵ).

Table 4
Curve fitting summary for experimental sets I and II in terms of dimensionless inertial and viscous resistance coefficients, ξ1 and ξ2 respectively, according to Equation
(1).
Experiment set-I Experiment set-II

ϵ(%) 26.5 34.76 39.49 44.78 22.51 29.29 36.64 38.84 46.49 50.85
ξ1 10.4 4.8 4.0 3.2 14.9 7.85 5.48 4.56 3.18 2.26
ξ2 15.37 429 − 1114 − 959 2359 3654 − 418.3 − 1095 − 1365 − 886
R2 1 1 1 1 0,99 0,99 1 1 1 1
RMSE 0.45 0.28 0.06 0.06 1.24 0.61 0.21 0.13 0.04 0.04

6
P.D. Tegenaw et al.
Fig. 8. Contours of airflow velocity magnitude for flows across the array of
discs with varying array-porosity at an inlet velocity V0 = 0.5 m5 . Note: The plots
shown are taken in a YZ plane passing through the center of the discs.
The two coefficients are observed to decrease as array-porosity increases
due to dehydration. This is expected as an increase in array-porosity
introduces more open space for the air to pass with less flow resis­
tance. This is also reported in other investigations of airflow resistances
across various food items (Irvine et al., 1993; Amanlou and Zomorodian,
2011; Kashaninejad and Tabil, 2009; Neale and Messer, 1976; Rapusas
et al., 1995), and across porous metals (Dukhan and Patel, 2008; Oun
and Kennedy, 2014). The porous media Reynolds number (Rep) was
defined by dividing the first term by the second term of Equation (1).
Using the coefficients shown in Table 4 at airflow speeds that range from
0.01 m/s to 2 m/s, the corresponding Rep was found to lay between 16
and 3 × 103. As Rep in all cases is much larger than one, the airflow
resistance across the array of sliced sweet potato is entirely dominated
by the inertial resistance term. A closer look at the decrease in the
viscous resistance coefficients reveals that for a higher array-porosity,
the value of ξ2 becomes negative. This negative values are merely
from numerical fitting of the measurements but physically this means at
these points viscous resistance becomes less important as more space is
open. In this region, only the Forchheimer (inertial resistance) suffices to
describe the relation between the pressure drop and airflow velocity.
7
Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739
Fig. 9. The effect of array-porosity on the pressure drop under different
simulated airflow velocities. Three sets of numerical studies with initial disc
diameter (d0) are shown: 33 (left), 40 (middle), and 50 mm (right).
3.2. Numerical study of airflow resistance across the array of sliced sweet
potato
3.2.1. Airflow velocity distribution with changing array-porosity
A representative simulation result showing contours of airflow ve­
locity distribution is shown in Fig. 8. The plots show the distribution of
airflow velocity approaching the discs, and the resulting wake at the
back of the disc array. The magnitude of the maximum airflow velocity
was observed in the interstitial spaces and it decreases when the array-
porosity increases from 21.5 to 65.4 percent.
3.2.2. The effect of array-porosity and initial disc diameter on airflow
resistance across an array of discs
The simulated pressure drops for the air flows across the array of
discs (with three initial diameters) are illustrated in Fig. 9, which shows
airflow resistance variations, in terms of pressure drop, at the five array-
porosity levels simulated for those disc arrays. The pressure drops re­
ported here are area weighted average values at a plane 0.15 m before
the disc arrays. For a constant airflow velocity, the pressure drop is
observed to decrease as the array-porosity increases. This is due to the
lower drag forces and momentum losses associated with air flows arrays
of higher array-porosity. The pressure drop at a given airflow velocity
was decreased by around 96% when the array-porosity increases from
21.5% to 65.4% for the three CFD sets. The results show that the airflow
resistance is highly dependent on the array-porosity and hence accurate
models describing this shrinkage are necessary if one wants to optimise
the drying process of food slices.
Similar to the experimental study, fitting simulated pressure drops
and associated airflow velocities into equation (1) show the dominance
of the inertial resistance. Table 5 shows the variation of this resistance
coefficient with the simulated array-porosity values and initial disc di­
ameters. As can be observed from this table, ξ1 highly depends on the
interim array-porosity.
3.3. Inertial resistance coefficient (ξ1) as a function of array-porosity
In equation (1), the inertial and viscous resistance coefficients are
represented as ξ1 and ξ2 respectively. Both the numerical and experi­
mental studies on the disc arrays revealed the dominance of the inertial
resistance. Hence, equation (6) can be used to describe the entire pres­
sure drop (ΔP) and airflow velocity (V):
ΔP = ξ1 ρa V 2 . (6)
The coefficient ξ1 is the highest at the start of the dehydration (low
array-porosity) and vanishes to rather small value at later stages in the
dehydration (higher array-porosity). Tables 4 and 5 have presented an
P.D. Tegenaw et al. Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739

Table 5
Values of inertial resistance coefficient ξ1 evaluated by fitting the data from CFD study sets I, II, and III into Equation (1). Note: the numbers between square brackets
indicate the range of predicted ξ1 values with 95% confidence.
CFD study set array-porosity(ϵ), %

21.5 36.0 47.9 57.6 65.4

I (ø33mm) 18.5 [18.48–18.6] 5.1 [5.08–5.18] 2.3 [2.29–2.34] 1.2 [1.23–1.25] 0.75 [0.75–0.76]
II(ø40mm) 19.3 [19.26–19.4] 5.27 [5.21–5.33] 2.38 [2.36–2.39] 1.28 [1.27–1.28] 0.77 [0.77–0.78]
III(ø50mm) 20.1 [20.03–20.2] 5.48 [5.44–5.51] 2.42 [2.40–2.44] 1.33 [1.31–1.35] 0.80 [0.79–0.81]

Fig. 10. The relationship between ξi and array-porosity ε from the experi­
mental and numerical studies with the fitted model according to Equation (7).
The three sets of studies with initial disc diameters (d0) are shown: 33 (left), 40
(middle), and 50 mm (right).
Fig. 12. Comparison of the relationship 7 for discs with results from the
literature: for perforated plate (Özahi, 2015) and Ergun’s equation (Ergun and
Orning, 1949).

drop relationships for air flows across disc arrays. In addition, due to a
better control over the geometry of constituting discs, it was possible to
delineate the influence of a changing array-porosity on airflow resis­
tance accurately in the case of the numerical study.
Further dimensional analysis was performed to describe the coeffi­
cient ξ1 in terms of geometrical parameters (array-porosity, initial
diameter, and/or diameter to thickness ratio) only. This is only possible
if the dimensionless Euler number (ξ1) is independent of the channel
Reynolds number (Re) (Huang et al., 2013; Özahi, 2015). It can be seen
from Fig. 11 that this validity holds for Re greater than 1 × 104. Similar,
critical Reynolds number value was also communicated for the
discharge coefficients in perforated orifices (Huang et al., 2013). Thus,
the expression shown by Equation (7) is suggested to calculate ξ1, in
terms of geometrical parameters (array-porosity (ϵ) and initial disk
diameter (d0)) for Re greater than 1 × 104.

ξ1 = (A + Bd0 )ϵ− C
(7)

Fig. 11. The relationship between Euler number (ξ1) and Reynolds number
(Re) at different array-porosity (ϵ) from the data at D0 = 50 mm. Note: The
dimension (L = 0.2 m) in the Re definition is the characteristics length of the
square channel.
exponentially decaying relationship between ξ1 and ϵ for each initial
disc diameter (d0). Moreover, Fig. 10 confirms this exponential rela­
tionship for the three sets of numerical simulations and it also juxtaposes
results from the experimental investigation. The comparison between
both studies shows that the CFD model could be used to find pressure
The experimentally and numerically found results did fit very well to the
model Equation (7) with R2 = 0.999. The predicted model parameters A,
B and C are 0.279, 1.685 (1/m), and 2.613, respectively.
Fig. 12 shows comparison of Equation (7) with the Ergun’s equation
for a pack of spherical objects (Ergun and Orning, 1949), and resistance
coefficient for a perforated plate (Özahi, 2015). As it can be observed,
the overall shape of the curve is the same. But, the Ergun’s equation,
developed for spherical objects, over and under predicts the resistance
coefficient for lower and larger porosity levels, respectively. This is
because at lower porosity levels, the flow is so much confined and it will
lose larger amount of energy due to friction on the surfaces of a sphere
which is twice as large as that of a disc. Thus, the resistance coefficient as

8
P.D. Tegenaw et al.
Fig. 13. Effect of changing array-porosity due to potato slice dehydration on air velocity magnitude profiles near lower(A) and upper(B) rack shelves of the solar food
dryer in the study of Tegenaw et al. (Tegenaw et al., 2019b). Note: The various array-porosity levels are indicated in percentage, and the corresponding pressure drop
relationships are indicated between brackets.
determined by Ergun’s equation is larger. However, at larger porosity
levels the flow is not confined as such and most of it will chose the path
of least resistance, whereby reducing losses due to friction on the sur­
faces. In the case of the perforated plate, lower resistance is expected due
to the smaller solid surface area to block the fluid flow for the same
geometric size of the discs. The found differences revealed the limitation
of the shape factor approach such as sphericity in adapting the Ergun’s
equation for calculations involving discs.
3.4. Relationship between airflow resistance coefficient with moisture
content
The relationship described in Equation (2) was converted to Equa­
tion (8) by assuming that all the discs shrink equally and only in the
radial direction, starting from an initial disc radius (r0).
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
r
=
1− ϵ
(8)
ro 1 − ϵ0
The expression given in Equation (8) can be used to relate the airflow
resistance with the average moisture content change. The shrinkage of a
potato slice versus its dimensionless moisture content (XX0 ) was studied to
fit a linear relationship (rr0 = 0.593 + 0.381(XX0 )) (Singh and Talukdar,
2019). Substituting this linear equation into Equation (8) results in
Equation (9):
( )2
X
ϵ = (− 1 + ϵ0 ) 0.593 + 0.381 + 1. (9)
X0
Equation (9) can be substituted into Equation (7) so as to use it as an
input for developing appropriate CFD models of transport phenomena in
food dehydration.
9
Journal of Food Engineering 312 (2022) 110739
3.5. Case study: CFD modeling of indirect solar food dryer
In this section, a numerical study to predict the airflow distribution
inside a solar food dryer based on the porous media approach is pre­
sented to showcase the application of Equation (7). For the details of the
CFD modeling and the dimensions of the solar food dryer, the readers are
directed to previous work (Tegenaw et al., 2019b). In this study, the
porous media approach was employed to model slices of sweet potato
placed on the lower and upper rack shelves of an indirect solar dryer,
whereby a constant resistance coefficient is prescribed using Ergun’s
equation with a shape factor adopted for cylinders. The pressure drop
relationship from the equation as seen in Fig. 13 is composed of both the
inertial and viscous term.
Fig. 13 shows the magnitude and distribution of the airflow velocity
in the vicinity of the rack shelves. By applying the findings of the current
study, it was possible to predict the changing distribution of airflow
velocity inside the drying chamber as dehydration proceeds (e.g.
changing array-porosity). It can be observed from Fig. 13, that the ve­
locity distribution significantly changes as the drying proceeds and
hence taking this change not into account would result in large modeling
errors in the transient drying process (see the reference distribution in
the figure). Although illustrated for the drying process in a solar dryer,
other drying processes involving the drying of an array of slices food
items can benefit from the results of the current study.
4. Conclusion
In this study, the airflow across an array of sliced food items is
investigated using wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations.
The airflow resistances from both studies were presented as a pressure
drop and fitted accurately to the Forchheimer equation. The airflow
resistance was observed to be mainly inertial, and being affected by
geometrical parameters like the initial disc diameter and array-porosity.
A model equation was proposed to describe the relationship between the
P.D. Tegenaw et al.
resistance coefficients and the geometrical parameters. The proposed
model equation fits very well with the results from the experiments and
the numerical simulations. The airflow resistances identified in this
research were used in the formulation of an appropriate porous media
based CFD modeling of the momentum transport phenomena in sliced
food items drying. Although, demonstrated in a solar dryer, the results in
this study can be incorporated into other macro-scale CFD modeling of
heat and mass transfer phenomena involving sliced food items.
Author’s contribution
Petros Demissie Tegenaw: Conceptualization, Methodology, Inves­
tigation, Software, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Visualiza­
tion, Data curation. Pieter Verboven: Conceptualization, Supervision,
Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Resources. Maarten Vanier­
schot: Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review &
editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Resources
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The Interfaculty Council for Development Cooperation (IRO) of KU
Leuvenis gratefully acknowledged for funding this research.
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