GATE AG 2014 • Q59 NAT • 2 Marks

Section 7: Dairy and Food Engineering

Heat and Mass Transfer

Subtopic: Transient heat transfer in simple geometry

Question Statement:

A container having volume 282.7 cm³ and total surface area 245 cm² is completely filled with milk whose initial temperature is 25°C. The continually stirred milk container is suddenly exposed to a steam bath at 100°C. The overall heat transfer coefficient between steam and milk is 1136 W m⁻² K⁻¹. The properties of milk are: specific heat capacity = 3.9 kJ kg⁻¹K⁻¹, thermal conductivity = 0.54 W m⁻¹K⁻¹ and density = 1030 kg m⁻³. Neglecting thermal resistance and heat capacity of container walls, the necessary time required in seconds to heat milk up to the temperature of 85°C, will be _____________.

Official Answer Key:

65 to 66

Step-by-Step Solution & Explanation

Since the milk is continually stirred (uniform internal temperature) and container thermal resistance/capacity is neglected, this is a lumped-capacitance transient heating problem: (T − T∞)/(T_i − T∞) = exp[−U·A·t / (ρ·V·c_p)] T=85, T∞=100, T_i=25 → (85−100)/(25−100) = −15/−75 = 0.2. A = 245 cm² = 0.0245 m²; V = 282.7 cm³ = 2.827×10⁻⁴ m³. U·A = 1136 × 0.0245 = 27.83 W/K. ρ·V·c_p = 1030 × 2.827×10⁻⁴ × 3900 = 1135.6 J/K. t = −ln(0.2) × (ρVc_p)/(UA) = 1.6094 × 1135.6/27.83 = 65.7 s, within the accepted range. (Thermal conductivity is not needed here — it is a distractor, relevant only if internal conduction resistance were being considered, which the problem explicitly says to neglect.)

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