Mathematical modeling—Computer-aided food engineering

While the food industry is quite innovative in terms of food product development, the process development is still primarily through trial and error experimentation. The use of virtualization or computer simulations to perform “what-if” scenarios using mathematical models that describe the food processes realistically might enable the food industry benefit significantly from a faster time-to-market and reduced resource use in product and process development. This chapter provides brief summary of the strengths of physics based (mechanistic) modeling in virtualization, discusses the need for modeling frameworks and introduces one framework (multiphase transport in deformable porous media), presents approaches to obtaining the properties necessary for such physics-based models, extends the applications to multiphysics and also multiscale, and finally discusses product and process optimization. Challenges in virtualization or computer-aided food engineering are also explained with future opportunities and directions.