Modeling coupled heat and mass transfer for convection cooking of chicken patties

A 2-D axisymmetric finite element (FE) model was developed to simulate coupled heat and mass transfer during convection cooking of regularly shaped chicken patties, given actual transient oven air conditions. Transient temperature and moisture distributions inside the product were predicted, and 98 chicken patties were cooked in a convection oven for model validation. The predicted transient center temperature under various cooking conditions had an error of 3.8–5.7°C, as compared to experimental data. The prediction error for the cooking yield was 1.2%. For the same cooking conditions, the prediction error would increase to 5.9–12.9°C if mass transfer were ignored in simulation. The best prediction was obtained when both thermal conductivity and specific heat were modeled as state-dependent functions in the simulation.