• This is an introductory module.
• Prerequisites: None but expects the student to be enrolled in an engineering curriculum.
• Recommended sequence: Intro
• Learning outcomes:
  • Compare and contrast between simpler and more comprehensive physics frameworks for understanding food processes
  • Apply food physics frameworks to complex food processes for their understanding and optimization
  • Formulate a computational model of a chosen food process with the eventual goal of speeding up the design cycle

• First in a series introducing framework for modeling food processes. Introduces lumped parameter heat and mass transfer models with the limited examples that are possible with this approach.
• Prerequisites: None but expects the student to be enrolled in an engineering curriculum
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter
• Learning outcomes:
  • Apply the lumped parameter approach to solve transient heat and mass transfer problems in food processing.
  • Set up conservation of energy and mass to derive the lumped parameter equations for transient temperature and moisture profiles.
  • Assess the limitations of a lumped parameter approach in describing food physics and when a more detailed approach is necessary.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 80 min

• This is the second module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It introduces distributed systems that are single phase heat and mass transfer. Quick derivation of fluid flow (Navier-Stokes), heat and mass transfer equations
• Prerequisites: None but expects the student to be enrolled in an engineering curriculum. Since this module is focused on the simplest way to model food physics problems, you do not need anything else apart from an interest in food engineering.
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase
• Learning outcomes:
  • To significantly enhance the physics-based training (in contrast with training in chemistry and microbiology) in food product and process development.
  • Learning more about the physics of quality/safety evolution during a food process should result in speedier and more effective optimization while reducing trial and error in product/process design.
  • Explain the rate laws governing the transport of energy, mass and momentum.
  • Combine conservation and rate laws to develop the governing heat, mass, and flow equations.
  • Identify the physical meanings of the terms in the governing equations such as storage, flow, conduction/diffusion, and generation.
  • Formulate the three types of boundary conditions.
  • Describe the limitations of single-phase equations and their relationship to more complex frameworks.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 204 min

• This is the second module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It introduces distributed systems that are single phase heat and mass transfer. Quick derivation of fluid flow (Navier-Stokes), heat and mass transfer equations.
• Prerequisites: None but expects the student to be enrolled in an engineering curriculum
• Recommended sequence: Single Phase>Thermal Conductivity
• Learning outcomes:
  • To significantly enhance the physics-based training (in contrast with training in chemistry and microbiology) in food product and process development.
  • Learning more about the physics of quality/safety evolution during a food process should result in speedier and more effective optimization while reducing trial and error in product/process design.
  • Define, identify, and explain thermal conductivity
  • Identify the parameters affecting the thermal conductivity of food material.
  • Compare the methods of prediction of thermal conductivity
  • Accommodate the uncertainty and the variability of the thermal conductivity data in a process.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 30 min

• This is the third module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It introduces phase change problems with the change occurring at a sharp interface. Derives equations for freezing and evaporation (frying) with two domains and the pseudo steady-state equations like the Plank’s equation for freezing.
• Prerequisites: None but assumes that the learner has either completed or is enrolled in an undergraduate course in food processing, food engineering, heat transfer and mass transfer
• Recommended Sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase>Sharp Interface Phase Change
• Learning outcomes:
  • Formulate the heat and mass transfer equations of a phase change process in terms of its two domains (frozen/unfrozen, wet/dry) and the phase-change interface (a sharp boundary).
  • Derive the formulas for freezing and drying times using the pseudo-steady state assumption in the above sharp boundary formulation.
  • Differentiate between the sharp boundary phase change formulation and the more general formulation of distributed phase change.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 105 min

The following series is the more comprehensive multiphase, multicomponent framework, covered in significant detail.

• This is the first module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It is an introduction to food as porous media, without any transport/mechanics details. Representative elementary volume, porosity, phases, concentrations and saturations for solid, water, vapor, and air. Typical variations for a process.
• Prerequisites: Since this is the qualitative module, you do not need to know anything else apart from interest in the food engineering.
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase>Sharp Interface Phase Change>Porous Media: Qualitative Introduction
• Learning outcomes:
  • Characterize food as a porous medium.
  • Interpret physical quantities such as concentration and saturation as averaged over a representative elementary volume.
  • Determine a representative elementary volume in a porous medium.
  • Predict the evolution of concentration, saturation, porosity in a porous medium.
  • Recognize the effect of deformation on saturation and porosity.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 62 min

• This is the second module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It provides the fundamentals of transport mechanisms (averaged rate laws for fluid flow, heat transfer, mass transfer), driving forces (gas, capillary, swelling, gravity), derivation of the mass transfer equations (water, vapor, vapor + air), heat transfer equations.
• Prerequisites:
  • Undergraduate engineering mathematics through partial differential equations
  • Some background in undergraduate fluid flow, heat transfer and mass transfer (not necessary to have taken an entire course on these topics)
  • Interest in food processes
• Recommended sequence: Qualitative Introduction> Transport
• Learning outcomes:
  • Identify the typical mechanisms of transport in a porous medium for the mass components of water, vapor, and air, and for heat.
  • Develop the governing equations that describe the transport of mass (water, vapor, and air) and heat in a porous medium.
  • Identify the origin and the physical meaning of each term in the governing equations.
  • Illustrate the mathematical forms and the physical meaning of the various couplings between the equations.
  • Distinguish the porous media governing equations from the single-phase governing equations.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 230 min

• This is the third module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It provides the fundamentals of formulation of the distributed evaporation term in heat and mass transport as equilibrium and non-equilibrium. Detailed discussions of each parameter in the evaporation term.
• Prerequisites: This is a stand-alone module and does not require formal courses as prerequisites but assumes that the learner understands the basics of heat and mass transport, and has been introduced to the concept of porous medium qualitatively.
• Recommended sequence: Qualitative Introduction > Transport > Evaporation
• Learning outcomes:
  • Characterize food as a porous medium.
  • Interpret physical quantities such as concentration and saturation as averaged over a representative elementary volume.
  • Determine a representative elementary volume in a porous medium.
  • Predict the evolution of concentration, saturation, porosity in a porous medium.
  • Recognize the effect of deformation on saturation and porosity.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 84 min

• This is the fourth module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It is a comprehensive description of boundary condition for heat transfer and mass transfer that includes that shows each phase (solid, water, vapor, air) and each mode (flow, diffusion).
• Prerequisites: This is a stand-alone module. It will require an understanding of the partial differential equations, the basics of heat and mass transfer. Completion of transport module is advised although not required.
• Recommended sequence: Qualitative Introduction > Transport > Evaporation > Boundary Conditions
• Learning outcomes:
  • Formulate the simplest boundary conditions for single phase fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer.
  • Formulate the boundary conditions for multiphase porous media transport equations by considering individual phases and their transport mechanisms.
  • Identify the parameter values needed for setting up boundary conditions.
  • Compare the relative merits of a conjugate approach as an alternative to boundary conditions.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 64 min

• This is the fifth module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It introduces mechanics starting from the simplest all the way to poromechanics and applications to foods. Gas pressure-driven swelling and water pressure-driven shrinkage are developed. Mechanical properties and permanent deformation.
• Prerequisites: 
  • Undergraduate engineering mathematics through partial differential equations​
  • Some background in undergraduate ​
    • fluid flow​
    • heat transfer​
    • mass transfer​
    • kinematics (Newton’s law of motion)​
    • Stress-strain relationship (Hooke’s law)​
    • Statics (not necessary to have taken an entire course on these topics)​
  • Interest in food processes
• Recommended sequence: Qualitative Introduction > Transport > Evaporation > Boundary Conditions > Deformation
• Learning outcomes:
  
  • Develop the governing equations that describe the deformation of food as a porous medium, following poromechanics.
  • Identify the origin and the physical meaning of each term in the governing equation.
  • Explain the entire computational process for deformation.​
  • Identify the material characteristics needed to describe deformation.​
  • Identify the driving forces for deformation (shrinkage/expansion) in a food as a porous medium.​
  • Illustrate the coupling between the transport process and deformation.​
  • Identify methods to model permanent deformation.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 130 min

• This is the sixth module in a series of modules on Food Physics. All properties related to porous media formulation—how porous medium properties are a composite of individual phases. Density, thermal conductivity, specific heat, capillary and swelling pressure diffusivity, permeability, porosity, etc.
• Prerequisites: This is a stand-alone module and does not require formal courses as prerequisites but assumes that you have the qualitative knowledge of heat and mass transfer, and fluid flow in food processing.  Although not required, it is preferred if you have completed the (1) Qualitative introduction to porous media and (2) Transport in porous media modules in the series.
• Recommended sequence: Qualitative Introduction > Transport > Evaporation > Boundary Conditions > Deformation > Properties
• Learning outcomes:

  • Identify the many material properties relevant to transport processes in porous media formulation.

  • Recognize that as the food is processed, these material properties vary with locations inside the food and with time due to changes in composition and shrinkage/swelling.

  • Estimate these material properties based on food composition and temperature, using relationships available

• Approximate duration including quizzes: 66 min

This is a summary of the six modules above.

• Approximate duration: 7 min

• This is the fifth module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It provides a framework for quality prediction, combining transport with kinetics, will be developed that is applicable to nutrient retention, color, texture, and flavor. Porosity and other parameters are also included.
• Prerequisites: This module uses knowledge of transport phenomena, fluid flow and averaging in the porous media. If you are not familiar with them, please complete the following modules before this.  
  • Single Phase
  • Qualitative Introduction to Porous Media
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase>Sharp Interface Phase Change>Porous Media > Quality
• Learning outcomes:
  
  • Explain quality mechanistically as a combination of reaction kinetics, process physics, and averaging.
  • Apply the quality prediction framework to predict nutrient level, color, texture and flavor.
  • Apply the framework for simplified situations where process physics itself can provide quality.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 78 min

• This is the sixth module in a series of modules on Food Physics. It provides framework for safety prediction, combining microbial and chemical kinetics with transport models to predict safety related quantities such as microbial level and carcinogen formation. Extension to risk definition and computation.
• Prerequisites: This module uses knowledge of transport phenomena, fluid flow and averaging in the porous media. If you are not familiar with them, please complete the following modules before this.   
  • Single Phase
  • Qualitative Introduction to Porous Media
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase>Sharp Interface Phase Change>Porous Media > Quality>Safety
• Learning outcomes:
  
  • Formulate a mechanistic framework for food microbial safety using elementary processes (migration, attachment, and growth/ inactivation) and combine them with the framework for food physics.
  • Formulate and apply a mechanistic framework of food chemical safety using transport and reaction, and combine it with the framework for food physics.
  • Extrapolate the mechanistic framework for food safety at the population scale and risk analysis.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 107 min

• This is the seventh module in a series of modules on Food Physics. Microwave heating in infinite and finite media and in microwave ovens, how food and oven factors decide the heating pattern inside food; basic heat transfer and mass transfer inside food under microwave heating; effect of property changes during heating.
• Prerequisites: This module requires the learner to have completed or to be enrolled in an undergraduate course in heat transfer and partial differential equations.
• Recommended sequence: Intro>Lumped Parameter>Single Phase>Sharp Interface Phase Change>Porous Media > Quality>Safety>Microwave Heating
• Learning outcomes:
  
  • Describe the microwave field with the electric and magnetic field components.
  • Analyze the microwave field in a semi-infinite slab.
  • Assess the effect of food properties on the microwave field inside the food.
  • Explain the non-uniformity of the microwave field inside the oven.
  • Determine how food factors (such as shape, size, aspect ratio, dielectric properties, and packing) affect the energy absorption in microwaves.
  • Determine how oven factors (such as location, turntable, and power cycling) affect the energy absorption in the microwave.
• Approximate duration including quizzes: 230 min