Freezing times of regularly shaped food items

The freezing of food is one of the most significant applications of refrigeration. In order for freezing operations to be cost-effective, it is necessary to optimally design the refrigeration equipment. This requires estimation of the freezing times of foods. Numerous semi-analytical/empirical methods for predicting food freezing times have been proposed. The designer of food refrigeration facilities is thus faced with the challenge of selecting an appropriate estimation method from the plethora of available methods. Therefore, a review of selected semi-analytical/empirical food freezing time prediction methods applicable to regularly shaped food items is given in this paper. The performance of these various methods is evaluated by comparing their results to experimental freezing time data obtained from the literature.