Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Case Studies in Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/csite

Experimental and numerical investigation of transport phenomena

T
and kinetics for convective shrimp drying
Minh Phu Nguyena,∗, Tu Thien Ngoa, Thanh Danh Leb
a
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, VNU-HCM, No. 268 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, District 10, Ho Chi Minh
City, Viet Nam
b
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, No. 12 Nguyen Van Bao Street, Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet
Nam

A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT

Keywords: In this study, an experimental apparatus was used to produce dried shrimp. From experiments
Heat and mass transfer with various air velocities and temperatures, the drying constant, moisture transfer coefficient
Numerical simulation and moisture diffusivity were obtained by using a Bi-Di correlation. An equation for determining
Shrimp drying the drying constant was established to determine the drying parameters for different drying
Transport properties
conditions. To obtain the targeted moisture, i.e., a moisture content of 0.25 (dry basis, d.b.),
drying with the highest temperature and air velocity (60 °C, 2 m/s) took 3.6 h, while the lowest
temperature and air velocity (50 °C, 1 m/s) required up to 5.8 h. The transport parameters were
then used to simulate the temperature and moisture content distribution inside the shrimp using
ANSYS software for a certain drying condition. The results showed that the shrimp temperature
increased rapidly, reaching the dry air temperature after approximately 15 min. The moisture
content in the tail was markedly lower than that at the centre, which is the thickest part of the
shrimp. The data from this study can be used to optimize the energy consumption in shrimp
convective drying technologies.

1. Introduction

Vietnam has one of the highest seafood catches in the world. Seafood exports also account for a high proportion of the national
economy; exports increased from $ 1 billion in 2000 to $ 8.3 billion in 2017, of which a large proportion is wild-caught and farmed
shrimp. From 2007 to 2017, the proportion of pangasius decreased from 73% to 47%, the proportion of shrimp increased from 11% to
18%, and the proportion of tuna increased from 9% to 30%, according to the 2018 report from the Vietnam Association of Seafood
Exporters and Producers (VASEP). Shrimp is stored by freezing or drying. Shrimp is commonly stored in coastal areas by sun drying
and hot smoke drying from coal burning, manual and seasonal processes. However, scholarly research on shrimp drying has been
done worldwide, especially in Thailand. Prachayawarakorn et al. [1] studied the characteristics of shrimp drying using steam and hot
air. Erdoǧdu et al. [2] constructed graphs to optimize the industrial shrimp cooking process to maintain shrimp quality. Shrimp
drying in a jet-spouted bed has been studied extensively [3–5]. In these studies, the hydrodynamic behaviour in the drying chamber,
the shrinkage of shrimp during drying, and the quality of dried shrimp were reported. Namsanguan et al. [6] proposed two-stage
drying of shrimp using superheated ste am and a heat pump or hot air. The results showed that the two-stage dryer had higher quality
dried shrimp than that from a single-stage dryer. Information technology has also been thoroughly applied to shrimp drying in recent

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nmphu@hcmut.edu.vn (M.P. Nguyen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2019.100465
Received 3 April 2019; Received in revised form 13 May 2019; Accepted 14 May 2019
Available online 15 May 2019
2214-157X/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

years. Hosseinpour et al. [7,8] applied computer vision to analyse the colour and shrinkage of shrimp during drying. Recently,
Akonor et al. [9] compared how different drying technologies affect the amount of protein and fat in shrimp, and the overall quality
of dried shrimp. More recently, Cheng et al. [10] used non-destructive quality control techniques to monitor the dynamic states of
water in shrimp during drying. They proved that water vaporization in shrimp was mainly due to the trapped water.
In the present study, we performed forced convection drying with an experimental apparatus to provide data on shrimp drying
properties, such as mass transfer coefficient, drying constant, moisture diffusivity, and drying curves. A few previous studies have
provided some kinetic and transport properties for shrimp drying. However, the data did not span a wide range of drying conditions,
and did not illustrate how to apply the moisture transfer parameters. Complete information is useful for the optimization and design
of experiments with various drying technologies, such as heat pump drying, solar energy, hot smoke and so on. Therefore, the drying
kinetics, mass transfer parameters and application to the distribution simulation of temperature and moisture content in the dried
shrimp are the main objectives of this paper. The Bi-Di correlation is a mathematical model to calculate the heat and mass transfer
coefficients and the moisture diffusivity. This is a widely used mathematical model in food drying studies [11–16]. From the obtained
data, the governing equations, initial and boundary conditions were established to simulate the distribution of temperature and
moisture in dried shrimp.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Sample preparation

The shrimp size used in the experiment was 130 shrimp kg-1. The shrimp was boiled in a salt solution (2% w/v) with a boiling
time of 7 min, and then preliminarily dehydrated in a centrifugal machine before drying. The moisture content of the preliminarily
dehydrated shrimp was Mi = 1.86 (dry basis, d.b.).

2.2. Experimental description

The experimental apparatus for forced convection shrimp drying is shown in Fig. 1. The model consisted of a 38 W fan and nine
130 W resistors. The fan speed and resistor power were controlled by variable resistors. The pipe diameter in the experimental
apparatus was 200 mm. A thin layer of shrimp was placed on a stainless-steel drying tray. The weight of the dry matter in shrimp was
determined by oven drying (Binder dryer) at 105 °C for 24 h. The drying air temperature was measured by a TESTO 735 thermometer
( ± 0.1 °C). The air velocity was measured using a PCE-007 air flow metre ( ± 3%). The shrimp weight was measured on an electronic
balance ( ± 0.01 g).

2.3. Moisture content and drying

The moisture content was estimated using the simplified moisture ratio equation [13]:

Fig. 1. Experimental apparatus.

2
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

M
Y=
Mi (1)

To determine the moisture transport mechanism, a semi-logarithmic plot (lnY-t) was constructed and fitted with a linear function.
This is the same model used by Henderson and Pabis, which was a good fit for the experimental drying data to describe the thin-layer
drying of shrimp [17]:
ln Y = −St + ln G or Y = G exp(−St ) (2)

where t is the drying time, S is the drying coefficient and G is the lag factor.
The moisture diffusivity was calculated by using Dincer and Hussain's equation [18]:

SL2
D=
μ12 (3)

where L is the shrimp half-thickness, D is the moisture diffusivity, and μ1 is a root of the transcendental characteristic equation, as
follows:

μ1 = −419.24G 4 + 2013.8G3 − 3615.8G 2 + 2880.3G − 858.94 (4)

The moisture transfer coefficient can be obtained from the definition of the Biot number, as follows:
D . Bi
hm =
L (5)

The Biot number was calculated from relationship between the Biot and Dincer numbers. This correlation was adopted for several
types of foodproducts subjected to drying [18]:

Bi = 24.848Di−3/8 (6)

where Di is the Dincer number, developed as follows:

v
Di =
SL (7)

where v is the flow velocity of drying air.

3. Experimental results and discussion

Fig. 2a presents the change in moisture ratio with drying time for a drying condition of 1.5 m/s and 50 °C, as a typical illustration.
A curve was fit to the experimental data to determine the lag factor G and drying coefficient S (R2 = 96.89%). For the presented
drying condition, the values of G and S were 0.958087 and 1.2444×10-4 s-1, respectively.
The moisture diffusivity, moisture transfer coefficient, and the Biot number were then calculated by using Eqs. (3–(7), as follows:

D = 6.67×10-9 m2/s

hm = 1.432×10-7 m/s

Bi = 0.0965

Similarly, experiments with different drying conditions were performed, and the results are tabulated in Table 1.
Table 1 shows the lag factor G was almost independent of the drying conditions and that its value was approximately unity. The
drying constant S denotes the drying capacity of a solid per unit of time. Compared to other types of food (fruits or vegetables), the S
for shrimp drying is relatively small, which indicates the shrimp drying time is longer than that of other foods in the same drying
condition [11–13]. The parameters D and hm play important roles in determining the moisture content distribution in a product. The
obtained values were all in the range 0.1 ≤ Bi ≤ 100, indicating that during shrimp drying, there were finite internal and surface
resistances. Among these parameters, the drying coefficient S is relatively significant for computing the mass transfer parameters.
Therefore, an equation of S as a function of drying conditions T and v was developed as Eq. (8) with R2 = 99%:

S = -2.40374×10-4+5.79192×10-6T-3.00167×10-8T2+1.62786×10-4v-4.17417×10-5v2
(8)

Fig. 2b shows nine drying curves from the model Y = G exp(−St ) at the drying conditions given in Table 1. The curves were built
from the initial moisture content of 1.86 d.b. to the final moisture content of 0.25 d.b. [4,5], i.e., the moisture ratio Y = 1 to 0.134.
Judging from Fig. 2b, to obtain the final moisture, the drying condition with the highest temperature and air velocity (60 °C, 2 m/s)
took 3.6 h, while the drying condition with the lowest temperature and air velocity (50 °C, 1 m/s) required up to 5.8 h.
The uncertainty analyses for lag factor and drying constant were performed from the measured data. The analysis method is
presented in the literature [19] which was proposed by Kline and McClintock. The uncertainty in the calculated result was estimated
as follows:

3
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

Fig. 2. a) Changes in moisture ratio with drying time at 1.5 m/s and 50 °C. b) Changes in moisture ratio with time at various drying conditions.

Table 1
Regression model coefficients and the calculated mass transfer parameters.
Drying conditions Model Y = G exp(−St ) Mass transfer parameters

O 4 -1
T ( C) V (m/s) G S×10 (s ) D×108 (m2/s) hm×107 (m/s) Bi

50 1.0 0.95582 0.9522 0.434 0.981 0.1016

50 1.5 0.95809 1.2444 0.667 1.432 0.0965
50 2.0 0.95788 1.3278 0.701 1.384 0.0888
55 1.0 0.96284 1.0842 0.842 1.999 0.1067
55 1.5 0.96511 1.3764 1.301 2.901 0.1002
55 2.0 0.96489 1.4598 1.354 2.771 0.0920
60 1.0 0.96677 1.2012 1.323 3.263 0.1109
60 1.5 0.96904 1.4934 2.058 4.731 0.1034
60 2.0 0.96883 1.5768 2.127 4.478 0.094

n 2
∂R
UR = ∑ ⎛ ∂x⎜ Ui ⎞
⎟

i=1 ⎝ i ⎠ (9)

where UR is the uncertainty in the calculated result R, and Ui is the uncertainty in the measured quantity xi.
The error calculation was performed using EES software [20]. The maximum errors in lag factor and drying constant were found
to be 4.35% and 6.96%, respectively.

4
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

4. NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF MOISTURE AND TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTIONS

A mathematical model was developed to predict the temperature and moisture content inside the shrimp during the convective
drying process. Heat transfer within shrimp is described by the conduction equation, with conditions as follows:
∂T k 2
= ∇T
∂t cp ρs (10)
The initial and boundary conditions were:
t = 0; T = Ti
− k∇T = ht (Ts − T∞)

Fick's second law equation was applied to simulate the moisture transfer:
∂M
= D∇2 M
∂t (11)
The initial and boundary conditions were:
t = 0; M = Mi
− D∇M = hm (Ms − Me )

where Me is the equilibrium moisture content, which can be evaluated by Oswin's equation [21] as follows:
0.645
RH
Me = 0.103 ⎛ ⎞
⎝ 1 − RH ⎠ (12)
where RH is the relative humidity of the drying air. The range of relative humidity was from 0.21 to 0.28 in the simulations. The
thermal conductivity k, specific heat capacity cp and density ρs of shrimp were taken from the study of Niamnuy et al. [4]. The heat
transfer coefficient, ht, was calculated from Pohllhausen's equation [22,23].
The distribution of moisture and temperature in the shrimp was simulated by using commercial software [24] based on finite
volume discretization. The 3D model of the shrimp and the mesh are shown in Fig. 3. A hexahedral mesh was used in the current
study. Double precision was used to improve the accuracy of the results. A convergence criterion of 10-6 was set for the governing
equations.
The input parameters for the simulation were conditions corresponding to a drying speed of 1.5 m/s and a drying temperature of
50 °C. Figs. 4 and 5 show the temperature distribution after 1000 s and the moisture content after 6.5 h. The shrimp temperature at
this point was fairly uniform and approximately the temperature of the drying air; the moisture of the shrimp tail reached

Fig. 3. 3D model of shrimp and mesh.

5
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

Fig. 4. Temperature distribution after 1000 s.

Fig. 5. Moisture content distribution inside shrimp after 6.5 h of drying.

approximately 0.12, while the body moisture was 0.3.

Fig. 6 presents the moisture ratio at different positions in the shrimp. There is a difference in moisture content between the
thickest position in the shrimp and the shrimp tail. After approximately 6.5 h, the moisture ratio at the shrimp tail was 0.07, while at
the thickest position it was 0.2. Fig. 7 represents the temperature distribution in the shrimp. After a short time (approximately
15 min), the temperature of the shrimp approaches the drying temperature, due to the small shrimp size.
The simulation results show a moderate deviation in the moisture ratio compared to the experimental results in the previous
section. The experimental result (Fig. 2a) and the simulation result (Fig. 6) indicated that moisture ratios are approximately 0.08 and
0.14 at a drying time of 22000 s, respectively. This can be explained by the size difference of the simulated shrimp, Bi-Di correlation
errors (the correlation coefficient of Eq. (6) is approximately 0.8), numerical solution errors and experimental process variations. The
simulation does not consider shrimp shrinkage or the latent heat of vaporization.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Experiments with convective drying for several drying conditions (50–60 °C; 1–2 m/s) were conducted to dry shrimp. The shrimp
drying behaviour was described by the Bi-Di correlation. An equation for determining the drying constant was established to de-
termine the drying parameters for different drying conditions. A 3-dimensional numerical simulation was performed to determine the
moisture and the temperature distribution in a shrimp. The main findings are as follows:

6
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

Fig. 6. Moisture ratio at the body and tail of shrimp with respect to drying time.

Fig. 7. Temperature at different positions.

1 The drying coefficient, moisture diffusivity, and the moisture transfer coefficient were in the ranges of 9.522×10-5 - 1.5768×10-4
s-1, 4.34×10-9 - 2.127×10-8 m2/s, and 9.81×10-8 - 4.478×10-7 m/s, respectively.
2 The shrimp temperature increased rapidly, approaching the dry air temperature during the initial 15 min
3 The moisture at the shrimp tail is quite low compared to that at its centre (the thickest point).

The current research results can enable the energy consumption optimization of drying processes for respective applications, and
suggest solutions to enhance temperature uniformity and moisture content distributions in shrimp during drying. At a certain drying
condition, the power of a heater (heat pump, solar collector, superheated steam dryer, etc.) and a fan can be determined. Drying time
is also predicted from Fig. 2b, if the final moisture content of shrimp is given. A better drying condition yields shorter drying time, but
the power consumption is higher, and vice-versa. The minimum energy consumption can be found from this trade-off.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

NOMENCLATURE

Bi Biot number (dimensionless)

cp Specific heat capacity of shrimp (J/kg-K)

7
M.P. Nguyen, et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 14 (2019) 100465

D Moisture diffusivity (m2/s)

Di Dincer number (dimensionless)
G Lag factor (dimensionless)
hm Moisture transfer coefficient (m/s)
ht Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2-K)
k Thermal conductivity of shrimp (W/m-K)
L Shrimp half-thickness (m)
M Moisture content (kg/kg, dry basis)
RH Relative humidity of drying air (decimal)
S Drying coefficient (s-1)
T Temperature (°C)
t Time (s)
v Flow velocity of drying air (m/s)
Y Moisture ratio (dimensionless)
ρs Density of shrimp
Subscripts

e equilibrium
i initial
s surface

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2019.100465.

Reference

[1] S. Prachayawarakorn, et al., Desorption isotherms and drying characteristics of shrimp in superheated steam and hot air, Dry. Technol. 20 (3) (2002) 669–684.
[2] F. Erdoǧdu, M.O. Balaban, W.S. Otwell, Construction of shrimp cooking charts using previously developed mathematical models for heat transfer and yield loss
predictions, J. Food Eng. 60 (1) (2003) 107–110.
[3] S. Devahastin, R. Tapaneyasin, A. Tansakul, Hydrodynamic behavior of a jet spouted bed of shrimp, J. Food Eng. 74 (3) (2006) 345–351.
[4] C. Niamnuy, et al., Modeling coupled transport phenomena and mechanical deformation of shrimp during drying in a jet spouted bed dryer, Chem. Eng. Sci. 63
(22) (2008) 5503–5512.
[5] C. Niamnuy, S. Devahastin, S. Soponronnarit, Effects of process parameters on quality changes of shrimp during drying in a jet-spouted bed dryer, J. Food Sci. 72
(9) (2007) E553–E563.
[7] S. Hosseinpour, et al., Application of computer vision technique for on-line monitoring of shrimp color changes during drying, J. Food Eng. 115 (1) (2013)
99–114.
[8] S. Hosseinpour, S. Rafiee, S.S. Mohtasebi, Application of image processing to analyze shrinkage and shape changes of shrimp batch during drying, Dry. Technol.
29 (12) (2011) 1416–1438.
[9] P.T. Akonor, et al., Drying characteristics and physical and nutritional properties of shrimp meat as affected by different traditional drying techniques, Int. J.
Food Sci. (2016) 1–5 7879097.
[12] M. Beigi, Influence of drying air parameters on mass transfer characteristics of apple slices, Heat Mass Transf. 52 (10) (2016) 2213–2221.
[14] D. Ghanbarian, M. Baraani Dastjerdi, M. Torki-Harchegani, Mass transfer characteristics of bisporus mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) slices during convective hot
air drying, Heat Mass Transf. 52 (5) (2016) 1081–1088.
[16] H.Y. Ju, H.M. El-Mashad, et al., Drying characteristics and modeling of yam slices under different relative humidity conditions, Dry. Technol. 34 (3) (2016)
296–306.
[15] A. Kaya, O. Aydin, M. Akgun, Drying kinetics and moisture transfer parameters of hazelnut, J. Food Process. Preserv. 35 (5) (2011) 714–721.
[11] X. Liu, H. Hou, J. Chen, Applicability of moisture transfer parameters estimated by correlation between Biot number and lag factor (Bi–G correlation) for
convective drying of eggplant slices, Heat Mass Transf. 49 (11) (2013) 1595–1601.
[13] V. Mrkić, M. Ukrainczyk, B. Tripalo, Applicability of moisture transfer Bi–Di correlation for convective drying of broccoli, J. Food Eng. 79 (2) (2007) 640–646.
[17] H. Darvishi, A. Farhang, E. Hazbavi, Mathematical modeling of thin-layer drying of shrimp, Glob. J. Sci. Front. Res. (GJSFR) 12 (3) (2012) 82–89.
[18] I. Dincer, M.M. Hussain, Development of a new Bi–Di correlation for solids drying, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 45 (15) (2002) 3065–3069.
[19] J. Holman, Experimental Methods for Engineers, eighth ed., McGraw-Hill, 2012.
[20] S.A. Klein, Engineering Equation Solver, F-Chart Software, 2013.
[21] S. Tirawanichakul, W. NA Phatthalung, Y. Tirawanichakul, Drying strategy of shrimp using hot air convection and hybrid infrared radiation/hot air convection,
Walailak J. Sci. Technol. 5 (1) (2011) 77–100 2011.
[23] E.K. Akpinar, Evaluation of convective heat transfer coefficient of various crops in cyclone type dryer, Energy Convers. Manag. 46 (15) (2005) 2439–2454.
[22] D. Velić, et al., Influence of airflow velocity on kinetics of convection apple drying, J. Food Eng. 64 (1) (2004) 97–102.
[24] ANSYS FLUENT, Theory Guide, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA, USA, 2013.
[10] S. Cheng, Y. Tang, et al., Approach for monitoring the dynamic states of water in shrimp during drying process with LF-NMR and MRI, Dry. Technol. 36 (7)
(2018) 841–848.
[6] Y. Namsanguan, W. Tia, et al., Drying kinetics and quality of shrimp undergoing different two-stage drying processes, Dry. Technol. 22 (4) (2004) 759–778.