A meshfree based three-dimensional (3-D) numerical model to simulate a single plant cell during drying

Food drying is a global industry focused on producing various types of dried food products, mainly sourced from plant food materials. In this regard, optimisation of food drying processes demands a thorough knowledge of the corresponding transport phenomena in plant food cellular structures. Based on this need, this research has developed a three-dimensional (3-D) numerical model to investigate the morphological changes and related solid and fluid dynamics of a single apple parenchyma cell during drying. This numerical model was developed by coupling a meshfree particle based method: Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and a Discrete Element Method (DEM). The plant cell model is composed of a cell fluid model and cell wall model. The cell fluid model is based on SPH and approximates the cell protoplasm to a homogeneous Newtonian liquid. The cell wall model is based on DEM and approximates the real cell wall to an incompressible Neo-Hookean solid material. A series of simulations were conducted to mimic the gradual geometrical shrinkage during drying as a function of the moisture content. Compared to conventional grid based numerical modelling techniques such as Finite Element Methods (FEM), Finite Difference Methods (FDM) and Finite Volume Methods (FVM); the proposed meshfree-based model can simulate physical deformations and shrinkage of cells within a wide range of moisture content, effectively replicating their realistic behaviour during drying