Experimental study on effects of packing arrangement and plastic liner bag on freezing rates of bulk packed chicken drumsticks

摘要

Accounting for voids within food packages remains a significant challenge for designers ofindustrial refrigeration equipment. The aim of this work was to assess the impact of the packingarrangement (regular arrangement versus random/irregular arrangement) and the presence of acarton liner bag on freezing rates of trays of chicken legs (‘drumsticks’). The freezing experimentsshowed that when contained within the liner bag, the packing arrangement of the chickendrumsticks within the tray did not have a significant impact on freezing rate for any of the airvelocities investigated based on a 95 % confidence interval. However, the presence of the linerbag had a significant impact on freezing times, increasing them by more than a factor of three athigh air velocity (4.3 m s~(-1)).