Analytical and numerical study of drying of tomato in non-shrinkage and shrinkage model.

In this paper the transport of heat and moisture during drying of tomato is studied by considering its viscoelastic properties. The phenomenon is described by a set of three coupled partial differential equations that take into account heat transfer, diffusion of moisture and stress driven diffusion. The stability behavior of the model in non-shrinkage case is studied. In order to solve numerically the model we consider finite difference method, IMEX(implicit–explicit) method. Numerical simulations for comparison of shrinkage and non-shrinkage models, show an influence of parameters in qualitative agreement with the expected physical behavior.