Abstract
The water transport mechanisms in potato microstructure consist of symplastic, apoplastic, and transcellular transport. Knowledge of the microscale behavior of water transport is important to increasing the productivity of food processing and obtaining high-grade processed food. In this research, a CFD simulation was performed in COMSOL Multiphysics for three different simplified designs of potato cell units representing a portion of microstructure, using three different equations for mass concentration in three parts, and velocity was simulated using the Brinkman equation in periodic boundary conditions during the low thermal process. The water concentration variation profile for the three designs is similar. The average velocity for all designs is the same in 0.72% cell fraction and has a difference in the highest fraction of 0.78% with 3.22×10− 9 m s− 1. From this simulation can conclude that velocity and diffusivity depend on both fraction and design, and mass concentration, and permeability depend on intercellular fraction for all designs, not the cell designs.