Dominant physical mechanisms governing the forced-convective cooling process of white mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus)

Nowadays, numerical modelling has been extensively converted to a powerful instrument in most agricultural engineering applications. In this study, a mathematical model was developed to simulate the forced-air cooling process of mushroom. The simulation was performed in CFD code Fluent 19.2 and the conservative mass, momentum and energy equations were solved within the package. The accuracy of the model was then quantitatively validated against experimental data and very good agreement was achieved ( Root-Mean-SquareErrorRMSE≃3.8% ). It was confirmed that in addition to convective mode, water evaporation makes a major contribution in mushroom cooling. According to the results, the developed model was able to predict the velocity and temperature profiles with a reasonable accuracy. It also has a potential to be used in design and optimization of such processes.