Abstract
The development of environmentally-friendly methods as alternatives to chemical fumigation for controlling insect pests has attracted public attention. Among these methods, heat treatment is based on the use of fan heaters that are positioned by operators who typically establish their number and position within buildings to be treated. The aim of this research was to improve heat treatment effectiveness by applying a validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for planning fan heater positions within the building environment. Based on a CFD model, which was built and validated according to experimental data acquired during heat treatment of a flour mill, simulations were carried out by changing the position and/or rotation of fan heaters with the aim of enhancing temperature distribution inside the building. The results showed that in some simulations the percentage of internal wall surfaces having a temperature value lower than that required for heat treatment efficacy was considerably reduced, by up to 56.7%. Therefore, the CFD approach proposed in this study could be used as a decision support system for improving heat treatment efficacy.
Highlights
In recent years, the topic of food safety has attracted increasing attention due to its relevance among the research trajectories promoted at the European level by the Horizon 2020 program.In detail, this research trajectory aims to combine tradition with product and process innovation by ensuring both high safety and quality standards for a wide range of products
During thermal treatment carried out in a flour mill located in eastern Sicily (Italy) for insect pest control, air temperatures and air velocities in the indoor environment were recorded using data-loggers and portable anemometers, and integrated with respect to values related to the external environment
A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, which provided a realistic representation of the inner conditions of the mill and the thermal behaviour of the building, was validated
Summary
The topic of food safety has attracted increasing attention due to its relevance among the research trajectories promoted at the European level by the Horizon 2020 program.In detail, this research trajectory aims to combine tradition with product and process innovation by ensuring both high safety and quality standards for a wide range of products. It is well known that flour mill products constitute an ideal substrate to enhance growth of these pests, and that their presence could be, in turn, a detriment of the quality of the milling industry products with negative consequences on their marketing [2]. To avoid these negative consequences, pest control is urgently needed. Pest control can be achieved by using different approaches, ranging from the use of chemical protectants, such as gaseous fumigants, to physical treatments [3]
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