Among new treatments in high pressure (HP) technology, phase change is one of the processes attributed with high potential of application in the food industry. Density differences of ices formed under HP and supercooling as well as the rapid ice nucleation are reported to reduce cellular damage of the food and enhance the final product quality. This work is, therefore, aimed at investigating phase change processes of water under high pressure by help of an in-situ visualization technique. Thermo liquid crystal technology is applied to a HP phase change process which has not been previously accustomed. Through this method, thermal and convective fields during different phase change processes with different ice types are analysed. Two-dimensional velocity data are further handled to generate some fluid-mechanical parameters such as shear rate, strain rate, vorticity and dissipation. Additionally, the system is represented mathematically by continuity equations for mass, momentum and energy to render a global interpretation and proficiency in analysing process mechanisms possible. Dimensionless numbers are utilized to decide the remarkable terms effecting the process. Convective and temperature field results demonstrate the differences between applied processes, such as Pressure Assisted Thawing (PAT) and Pressure Shift Thawing/Freezing (PST/PSF). A strong interaction is found between solid body motion and liquid phase. For PST process, where the thawing is taking place during pressure increase, enhanced local velocity values are obtained for both phases, in comparison with PAT. During both PAT and PST, different local flow characteristics are observed, such as stagnation or extensional flow regions. For PST vortex formation is also observed for the process. This different flow behaviour is found to be effective on temperature profile as well. PST process demonstrates inhomogeneities during phase change, whereas PAT has almost a homogeneous temperature distribution. This phenomena is prominent regarding the homogeneity concept for high pressure processing. Moreover, ice types which have higher densities than that of water (ice III and V) are distinguished with an opposite direction of motion of the solid body, regarding ice I. Thus, they demonstrate different flow characteristics. Concerning dimensional analysis, dimensionless groups (Ec/Re, Ec/Fr, Ec/Ste) show that the contribution of convective terms to the system does not become significant at the low fluid velocities. Therefore thermal conduction and gravitational contribution are found to be more significant in comparison to frictional stresses. As most prominent findings, the importance of interaction between phases and inhomogeneity during investigated processes have been presented in this contribution. Experimental determination of convective and temperature fields during high pressure phase change is achieved. The effect of the fluid-mechanical parameters on biological tissues has been found to be not crucial compared to critical parameters for biological processes. Nevertheless, HP technology and HP phase change processes should be further investigated as they possess an important potential in food industry, regarding their advantages reported in literature. This study, specifically, is attempted to be one of the essential contributions in this manner.
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Among new treatments in high pressure (HP) technology, phase change is one of the processes attributed with high potential of application in the food industry. Density differences of ices formed under HP and supercooling as well as the rapid ice nucleation are reported to reduce cellular damage of the food and enhance the final product quality. This work is, therefore, aimed at investigating phase change processes of water under high pressure by help of an in-situ visualization technique. Thermo...
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