Finite difference Legendre wavelet collocation method applied to the study of heat mass transfer during food drying

Abstract

In this paper, we studied a single-phase-lag model of heat and moisture transfer in a finite slab, cylinder or sphere, undergoing industrial drying of foods. The present model is a boundary value problem of a system of two nonlinear second-order hyperbolic partial differential equations. The solution of the present is model obtained by using finite difference Legendre wavelet collocation (FDLWCM) and Galerkin methods. In case of constant moisture diffusivity, we observe that the finite difference Legendre wavelet Galerkin and collocation solutions are exactly the same. Laplace transform and FDLWCM solutions are approximately the same. The L 2 norm error decreases as Legendre wavelet basis functions increases and strip size decreases. The L 2 norm relative error increases as Luikov number increases. L 2 norm relative error is highest in cylindrical shape and lowest in slab shape while in between spherical shape. The effects of the dimensionless parameters of heat and mass transfer are discussed in detail. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.