Dynamics of vacuum impregnation of apples: Experimental data and simulation results using a VOF model

► Time-resultant force curve provides relative deformations of sample during VI. ► 3D model describes the dynamics of liquid penetration into the porous solid. ► Inversed method allowed to estimate a representative pore diameter of apple samples. Vacuum impregnation (VI) of foods can be used to accelerate industrial processes. VI consists of removing the air present in a food by applying vacuum and replacing it with a given solution by recovering the atmospheric pressure. In this work, the goal was to study important parameters in the dynamics of VI and to propose a three-dimensional mathematical model (based on the Volume-of-Fluid model) for predicting the impregnation step in apple samples. An experimental device was built for determining the dynamics of VI. It was verified that the capillary radius that allowed for the best representation of the dynamics of vacuum impregnation were in the order of magnitude of micrometers, values that are in the range reported in the literature. The proposed mathematical model showed excellent predictive ability for three-dimensional simulation. However, for more accurate values, one should determine the parameters with improved accuracy.