New Researches in Biotechnology - Facultatea de Biotehnologii ...

Proceeding of the 4 rd International Symposium“NEW RESEARCH IN BIOTECHNOLOGY” USAMV Bucharest, Romania, 2011THE MATHEMATICAL MODELING IN OPTIMIZATION OFREFRIGERATION PROCESS1, 2, 3Faculty of Biotechnology, U.S.A.M.V., BucharestMioara Varga 1 , Mira Turtoi 2 , Mihaela Ghidurus 3Abstract. In recent decades there is a continuing concern in the food industry for optimization ofrefrigeration process. Improvement of conservation technologies of perishable food products has asprimary objective the combination of capabilities extending the validity of the product with keepphysical, chemical, nutritional and sensory properties. The mathematical modeling is a fundamentalsolution to which appeals most often to optimize a random process, including the refrigeration.In the first part of this paper we present the main theoretical elements that characterize theoptimization process using certain mathematical models. Then, we apply the theoretical conceptspreviously presented to optimize two refrigeration processes.Keywords: mathematical model, stochastic optimization, evolutionary method1. INTRODUCTIONIt is known that refrigeration has a key role in food safety; at present there areseveral technologies that apply conservation of perishable food products (radiation, drying,curing, high-pressure processing and conservation). With these techniques is intendedprimarily to extend the combined capacity of validity of the product, while maintaining thephysical, chemical, nutritional and sensory qualities, the objective being pursued in thesame way by both consumers and manufacturers of refrigeration systems.An important consequence of the widespread use of refrigeration systems is toensure better nutrition worldwide both in terms of quantity and quality of perishable food.In terms of quality, it should be emphasized that chilling leads to reduce damage to vitalfood of animal and vegetable nature (which can accommodate different pathogens) andhence the decline in bacterial growth.The above are some arguments that justify the importance accorded to refrigerationprocesses. Permanent concern of researchers for optimizing food refrigeration processes isso logical, although until now small steps have been taken in this direction. Tradition,certain regulations in the field, the criteria by which food or processes are structured as anoptimization problem (choice of objective function and non-quantitative definition ofvariables subject to large errors), contributed to the development of interest in this directionof the food industry.In recent years there have been several studies to modeling food processes thatenable some products that were intangible qualities such as taste, tenderness, color, safetyand other quality factors to be quantifiable and predictable.Data processing techniques have evolved through improved observation,experiments gave errors and time consuming, and mathematical modeling has become themethod most often used for optimization of refrigeration processes.105