Determination and prediction of thermal conductivity of frozen

part baked bread during thawing and baking

Vanessa Jury
a
, Jean-Yves Monteau
a,
*
, Jacques Comiti
b
, Alain Le-Bail
a
a
ENITIAA UMR GEPEA (UMR CNRS 6144), Nantes Atlantique Universite s, Rue de la Ge raudie` re BP 82225, F-44322 Nantes Cedex 03, France
b
Universite de Nantes, UMR GEPEA (UMR CNRS 6144), Nantes Atlantique Universite s, Boulevard de lUniversite , 44600 Saint-Nazaire, France
Received 14 November 2006; accepted 27 February 2007
Abstract
The thermal conductivity of food is usually measured in isothermal conditions with a line-heat source probe. The thermal conductivity
of bread during the baking phase is function of temperature and is an important parameter to assess. This work aims at (i) developing a
measurement method of thermal conductivity in pseudo-non-isothermal conditions, usable during the part baked bread thawingbaking
phase, and (ii) establishing models to predict the change of the thermal conductivity as function of the temperature. The line-heat source
probe method has been used, the probe temperature being corrected by subtracting the temperature increase due to the baking. Values
obtained in pseudo-non-isothermal conditions during the thawingbaking phase are similar to these ones obtained in isothermal condi-
tions. A parallel model has been successfully used to t the experimental values of the thermal conductivity of bread during the baking
phase.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Part-baked bread; Thermal conductivity measurement; Thermal conductivity modelling; Line heat source method
1. Introduction
The study of heat and mass transfer during food pro-
cesses, such as freezing, sterilization, drying and baking
requires the knowledge of the thermal properties of the
product. Thermal conductivity of food materials is a major
thermal property used to estimate the rate of conductive
heat transfer. A lot of researchers reviewed the methods
of measurement of the thermal conductivity (Baik, Mar-
cotte, Sablani, & Castaigne, 2001; Nesvadba, 1982; Rask,
1989). Basically, two major measurement techniques are
used: the steady state techniques in which a time-indepen-
dent heat ow is generated and the transient methods in
which samples are subjected to a time-dependent heat ow.
The line heat source thermal conductivity probe method is
the most widely used of transient methods because of the
short duration of experiments and the small temperature
increase of the product (Carson, Lovatt, Tanner, & Cle-
land, 2004; McGinnis, 1987). Nevertheless the theory of
this method is based on the assumption of an isothermal
initial condition. Therefore, very few researchers attempted
to use this method in non-isothermal conditions. Besides,
several studies related to the measurement of the thermal
conductivity in the frozen and non-frozen domain are
available (Carson, Lovatt, Tanner, & Cleland, 2006;
Hamdami, Monteau, & Le Bail, 2003; Kumcuoglu, Tav-
man, Nesvadba, & Tavman, 2007). Very few studies con-
cerning the measurement of thermal conductivity at
baking temperatures are available. Bakshi and Yoon
(1984) measured thermal conductivity of bread rolls during
baking by line heat source probe method. One of the draw-
back related to this work lies in that the authors did the
measurements outside the oven. Therefore samples were
likely to undergo modications related to the exposure to
ambient room conditions.
The concept of eective thermal conductivity is pro-
posed by some authors (Hamdami et al., 2003) and can
0963-9969/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2007.02.006
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 251 785 481; fax: +33 251 785 467.
E-mail address: monteau@enitiaa-nantes.fr (J.-Y. Monteau).
www.elsevier.com/locate/foodres
Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882
be used to simulate thermal process. The eective thermal
conductivity accommodates several modes of heat transfer
such as pure conduction, evaporationcondensation, radia-
tive heat transfer for example. Modelling thermal conduc-
tivity of porous food addresses diculties due to the
structure of food. There is no universal real model or pre-
diction procedure with universal applicability for such a
matrix. Many studies focuses on the modelling and/or on
the measurement of the thermal conductivity of porous
food matrix (Baik et al., 2001; Bakshi & Yoon, 1984; Lind,
1991; Tarnawski, Cleland, Corasaniti, Gori, & Masche-
roni, 2005). Carson (2006) classied models in two catego-
ries: (i) rigid models based on the thermal conductivities of
the constituents of the matrix and volume fractions (such
as series and parallel models) and (ii) exible models con-
taining an additional structural parameter(s) such as for
example the Krischers model. Several models have been
designed for the thermal conductivity. Series and parallel
models are considered as the two extremes models in term
of concept. Most of the others models are combinations of
these two basic models. The Maxwell model has also been
used by some authors (Hamdami et al., 2003).
Very few studies are available on the evaluation and/or
on the modelling of the thermal conductivity of bread
crumb at baking temperatures. Lostie, Peczalski, and And-
rieu (2004) proposed a study on the estimation of the ther-
mal conductivity of sponge cake crust during the baking.
An inverse method was used to estimate the thermal con-
ductivity at low and negative temperature (Martins &
Silva, 2004; Pham & Yip, 2004). A particular advantage
of inverse methods is to allow estimation of several param-
eters of a thermal conductivity model without limitation to
a constant value. Another study used inverses methods to
model thermal conductivity during sandwich bread chill-
ing, and thus on a large range of temperature values (Mon-
teau, accepted for publication).
The objective of this study was to develop a method to
continuously measure the thermal conductivity of partially
baked bread during the second and nal baking and to
develop models to predict the thermal conductivity.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Part baked bread preparation
Tests were carried out on part-baked wheat bread of
French type. Flour was purchased from a local milling
plant (SOUFFLET, Pornic, France). Dough recipe is pro-
vided in Table 1. A spiral mixer was used (VMI, Montaigu,
France) with batches of dough of 3.3 kg. Mixing was done
in two steps: a low-speed mixing step (3 min, 100 rpm) and
a high-speed mixing step (9 min, 200 rpm). At the end of
mixing, the dough temperature was 23 C. After 10 min
rest, the dough was divided into round pieces
(160 g 1 g). After fermentation during 30 min at ambient
temperature, the dough was formed into a 27 cm long and
Nomenclature
a
w
water activity
D diusivity of water vapor in air, m
2
s
1
f
evacon
resistance factor against vapor transport
f
k
structural factor of the Krischer model
H
fw
enthalpy of water fusion, J kg
1
I probe current intensity, A
L latent heat of water, J kg
1
L
0
latent heat of evaporation, J mol
1
P total pressure, Pa
Q power dissipated in the probe, W m
1
r
2
correlation coecient
R probe resistance, X m
1
R perfect gas constant, 8.314 J mol
1
K
1
S slope of the linear portion of the plot of the tem-
perature vs. ln(t)
T temperature, K
x mass fraction
Greek symbols
k thermal conductivity, W m
1
K
1
k
evacon
equivalent thermal conductivity due to evapora-
tioncondensation phenomenon, W m
1
K
1
h temperature, C
h
f
initial freezing point, C
e volume fraction, m
3
/m
3
product
e
a
porosity
q density, kg m
3
Subscripts
a correspond of pores (void)
air air
app apparent
b bound water
c continuous phase
d dispersed phase
e eective
i ice
Kri Krischer
n component n
pa parallel
s solid
sat saturated
se serie
t true
tw total water
w water
V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882 875
3 cm radius cylinder with mechanical moulding equipment
(Puma, Mitry-le-Neuf, France). The cylindrical dough were
installed on proving nets and placed in a fermentation cab-
inet (Panimatic, Souppes-sur-le Loing, France) for 90 min
at 27 C and a relative humidity greater than 90%. Then,
the scaried pieces of dough were pre-baked for 12 min
in a convection oven (Sonor, Bois-Grenier, France) at
150 C. During the rst minutes of baking, 300 ml of water
was injected into the oven with the oven steam generator to
promote oven rise, i.e. the bread expansion, to reduce the
weight loss of samples and to give a bright surface of the
bread. Pre-cooling was performed by natural convection
at 10 C and at a relative humidity greater than 85% for
40 min inside the moulding equipment. The part baked
breads were packaged in moisture impermeable bags, fro-
zen at 30 C in a freezing cell (MATAL, Les Sorinie`res,
France) and stored at 20 C. The crust samples were
made of 20 layers of crust that were stacked. Crust pieces
were sampled on the bread by considering as crust the
part of the bread that can be naturally separated from
the crumb. Crust domains were typically 3 mm thick and
had a disk shape (5 cm diameter). Crust was sampled after
frozen storage just before experiments. For the nal bak-
ing, the frozen part baked breads were installed on proving
nets and immediately baked for 8 min at 210 C. The nal
cooling was performed at ambient temperature.
2.2. Total water content
The total water content of samples was determined by
drying 4 g of sample in a forced convection oven at
103 C for 16 h. The samples were cooled in a desiccator
and weighed by an analytical balance TB-215D (Denver
Instrument GmbH, Go ttingen, Germany sensitivity
0.01 mg).
2.3. Unfreezable water mass fraction
The unfreezable water mass fraction was measured by
dierential scanning calorimeter DSC Q 100 (TA Instru-
ments, New Castle, Delaware, USA), by dierence between
total water content and the amount of water detected by
the fusion endotherm, i.e. the thermogram given by the
calorimeter:
x
b
x
tw

H
fw
L
1
2.4. Porosity
The porosity was determined by Eq. (2) (Miles, van
Beek, & Veerkamp, 1983):
e
a
h 1
q
app
q
t
h
2
where q
app
was the apparent density determined by divid-
ing the net weight of the sample by the measured apparent
volume, and q
t
the true density calculated by
1
q
t
h

x
s
q
s

x
b
x
tw
x
b

h
f
h
q
w

x
tw
x
b
1
h
f
h

q
i
3
below the freezing point and
1
q
t
h

x
s
q
s

x
tw
q
w
4
above the freezing point. q
s
was measured using a helium
pychnometer AccuPyc 1330 (Micromeritics, Norcross,
USA).
The freezing point of crumb and crust was 5.2 C and
9.5 C, respectively. They were determined from the tem-
perature history of the crumb and crust during freezing, as
the temperature of the plateau observed on these curves.
2.5. Eective thermal conductivity
2.5.1. Thermal conductivity measurement
Thermal conductivity was determined with a line source
probe which was build in our laboratory and which is sim-
ilar to that described by Sweat and Parmelee (1978). The
thermal conductivity probe was made with an hypodermic
tubing 3.5 cm long and 0.70 mm diameter. Constantan wire
0.05 mm in diameter with polyamide insulation was uti-
lized as the heater wire. K type thermocouple wires
(OMEGA, Stamford, USA) were used (0.05 mm diameter).
The heater wire and thermocouple wires were insulated
from each other and from the hypodermic tubing by poly-
amide. An OMEGA miniature connector was used and
was resistant to high temperatures. A version of the ther-
mal conductivity measurement system developed by
McGinnis (1987) was used to supply power, measure cur-
rent and record temperatures and voltage. The probe was
inserted into the crumb and crust samples. The crust sam-
ples were composed of 20 laminates of 5 cm diameter. The
probe heater was connected to a DC power supply
HM8142 (Hameg GMBH, Mainhausen, Germany). The
temperaturetime and voltagetime data were continuously
collected by a digital recorder Datalog 20 (AOIP, Evry,
France) which was bi-directionally interfaced with a PC
so measurement could be programmed on a microcom-
puter. The record of voltage was used to nd the initial
time of the heating.
2.5.2. Calibration
Thermocouples and therefore probe temperature was
calibrated against a reference platinum sensor (Comptoir
Table 1
Dough recipe used in experiments
Dough recipe Content (g)
Flour 100
Water 60
Compressed yeast 3
Salt 2.2
Ascorbic acid 0.03
876 V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882
Lyon-ALemand, France). The probe calibration was real-
ized by measuring the thermal conductivity of glycerin at
selected temperatures between 5 C and 40 C. This cali-
bration permitted to determine the heater wire resistance
(R = 1630.6 X m
1
) which is used in the heater power cal-
culation. It was found that the resistance was constant in
the temperature domain which was considered. The accu-
racy of the measurement using Eq. (5) was estimated to
be 3%.
2.5.3. Thermal conductivity determination
The samples thermal conductivity was calculated by
using the classical equation of the linear heat source in iso-
thermal conditions (McGinnis, 1987):
k
Q
4pS
5
where S is the slope of the curve temperature vs. the loga-
rithm of time and Q is the linear power dissipated by the
probe calculated by
Q RI
2
6
where I is the current intensity owing through the heater
wire.
To obtain satisfactory linearity of temperature vs.
ln(time) plot, the procedure was standardized by adjusting
the power level dissipated by the probe so that it results in
an increase of the probe temperature by 10 C maximum
(initial temperature basis), using a duration of 10 s, and
accepting thermal conductivity values measured only when
the temperature vs. logarithm of time showed a correlation
factor r
2
larger than 0.98.
In case of a measurement in non-isothermal conditions,
another determination was done. The line heat source
probe was used inside the oven during the nal baking of
frozen part baked bread. During the nal baking, samples
are submitted to a temperature gradient due to the heat
transfer occurring between the bread and the oven. The
crumb temperature was measured using the value given
by the thermocouple of the thermal conductivity probe.
Therefore the temperature change which was recorded cor-
responds to the increase of the combined rise of (i) the tem-
perature of the crumb due to the heat up during nal
baking and (ii) of the increase of the temperature due to
the heat up of the probe during measurement according
to the thermal conductivity of the surrounding material.
The mean value of the crumb temperature was also mea-
sured by another thermocouple located in the bread crumb
section. Fig. 1 presents the dierent curves collected during
a thermal conductivity measurement during the nal
baking.
Thermal conductivity measurements occurred every
minute on the same sample, without taking it out the oven,
then without disturbing it.
In principle, the linear heat source probe method is valid
only for isothermal conditions. In fact, the theory has been
developed for isothermal conditions to simplify the calcula-
tions. One may easily imagine that the theory of the
method could be adapted to the case of a material undergo-
ing a progressive and isotropic temperature change. In our
case, measurements during baking were amounted to
pseudo-isothermal conditions. Indeed, the rate of tempera-
ture change was rather slow and was rather a kind of slid-
ing pseudo-isothermal condition. During the short time
needed for the measurement, the rate of change of the
crumb temperature due to the baking was very low in com-
parison to the temperature increase due to the heat dissi-
pated by the probe (respectively 0.5 C for 10 C
increase). The temperature measured by the probe was cor-
rected by subtracting the slight temperature change during
the measurement. A comparison has been done between
measurement done in strictly isothermal conditions and
measurements done in pseudo-isothermal conditions,
showing that both methods resulted in similar values.
The thermal conductivity was calculated using Eq. (5).
Three sets of experiments were carried out:
(a) at various steps of the manufacture of the part baked
bread for crumb and crust in isothermal conditions,
(b) in isothermal conditions at selected sample tempera-
ture: 20, 5, 0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 50, 60, 80 C on the
crumb and crust samples, with moisture contents of
46% and 32% (wet basis), respectively,
(c) in non-isothermal conditions during the thawing
baking of the part baked bread on the crumb
samples.
Each experimental condition was performed with at
least six repetitions.
2.5.4. Thermal conductivity model development
Four physicals models were tested for thermal conduc-
tivity prediction of crumb and crust: parallel, series,
Krischer and modied Maxwell models (Keey, 1972; Miles
et al., 1983). Bread is considered as a multicomponent
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
0 1 2 3
ln (time)
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
probe temperature increase in test during
baking conditions
probe temperature increase after correction
during baking conditions
probe temperature increase due to bread
temperature increase during baking
Fig. 1. Curves obtained during thermal conductivity measurement in
isothermal and non-isothermal conditions.
V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882 877
made of three-phases, namely the dry mater (proteins,
lipids, carbohydrates, mineral salts, etc.), the water and
the pores (gaseous phase including air and water vapor).
At freezing temperature, the system is even more complex
due to the presence of ice and to the fact that the icewater
ratio is function of the temperature.
The thermal conductivity of ice, water and solid (carbo-
hydrates) are calculated with the following equations
(Singh, 1992):
k
i
h 2:2196 6:248 10
3
h 1:0154 10
4
h
2
7
k
w
h 0:57109 1:7625 10
3
h 6:7036 10
6
h
2
8
k
s
h 0:20141 1:3874 10
3
h 4:3312 10
6
h
2
9
In porous media, moisture migration in vapor state
occurs in the pore cavity when a temperature gradient is
applied between each opposite face of the pore. Water
evaporates at the high temperature side, diuses in the pore
space according to the vapor pressure gradient caused by
the temperature gradient, and condensates at low tempera-
ture side (de Vries, Sluimer, & Bloksma, 1988). Thus latent
heat is transported through the pores. By considering the
eect of the latent heat transport, the eective thermal con-
ductivity in pores has been modelled using the following
equations and models (Moyne, Batsale, & Degiovanni,
1988)
k
a
h k
air
h k
evacon
hf
evacon
10
where k
evacon
is the equivalent thermal conductivity due to
the latent heat transport (evaporationcondensation)
(Sakiyama, Akutsu, Miyawaki, & Yano, 1999):
k
evacon
T
DT
RT
P
P a
w
P
sat
T
L
o
Ta
w
dP
sat
dT
T 11
The parallel and series models are respectively repre-
sented by the following equations (Miles et al., 1983):
k
pa
h e
a
hk
a
h e
s
hk
s
h e
w
hk
w
h e
i
hk
i
h
12
k
se
h
1
eah
kah

esh
ksh

ewh
kwh

e
i
h
k
i
h
13
where the volume fraction of any component, e
n
, as a func-
tion of temperature is obtained from the following
equation:
e
n
h
q
app
x
n
h
q
n
14
where x
n
and q
n
are respectively, the mass fraction and den-
sity of the component n.
Krischers model is a combination of parallel and series
models with a distribution factor:
k
Kri
h
1
1f
k
kpah

f
k
kseh
15
Maxwells model requires a stepwise procedure. At each
step, two-phases are distinguished: a continuous and a dis-
continuous phase. The thermal conductivity of a food by
the Maxwell equation is dened as (Miles et al., 1983):
k
eff
k
c
2k
c
k
d
2e
d
k
c
k
d

2k
c
k
d
e
d
k
c
k
d

16
where k
c
and k
d
are respectively, the thermal conductivities
of continuous and discontinuous phase. In this study a
three-step modication of the Maxwell model developed
by Hamdami et al. (2003) was used for thermal conductiv-
ity prediction.
Model parameters f
k
and f
evacon
were estimated by t-
ting the model calculated values of eective thermal con-
ductivity to experimental ones by minimizing the sum of
squared error between measured and predicted values
(Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm implemented in the
function fminsearch of the Optimization toolbox 3.0 of
Matlab).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Evolution of the thermal conductivity of crumb during
the manufacture of part-baked bread
Fig. 2 shows the temperature and the eective thermal
conductivity measured for the crumb during the manufac-
ture of frozen part baked bread, during thawing and at the
nal baking temperature. It appears that thermal conduc-
tivity increases when temperature increases. In these exper-
iments, moisture content of the crumb was always 0.46 kg/
kg product. Thermal conductivity of crumb changes a lot
during the dierent stages of the manufacture. Thermal
conductivity increases with temperature. So it is necessary
to know values of thermal conductivity in order to simulate
any stages of manufacture.
The thermal conductivity of bread was not signicantly
dierent before (20 C) and after freezing and thawing
(4 C) (steps part-baked cooled and thawed).
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
dough par baked par baked
cooled
thawed baked baked and
cooled
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
temperature conductivity
Fig. 2. Evolution of the temperature and eective thermal conductivity of
crumb during the manufacture of part baked bread.
878 V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882
3.2. Eect of freezing and thawing on crust and crumb
Fig. 3 presents the comparison of thermal conductivity
and Table 2 of moisture content and porosity before and
after freezing for crumb and crust. All measurements were
done at 20 C. Moisture content and porosity of crust did
not change during freezing and thawing. Thermal conduc-
tivity of crust was lower after being frozen although mois-
ture content and porosity properties were the same.
With regard to the crumb, moisture content was not
modied after being frozen. On the opposite, the porosity
of the crumb was increased after freezing and thawing
(apparent density decreases), probably because of the ice
water transitions during freezing and thawing. In the same
time, thermal conductivity increases after being frozen.
However it is known that thermal conductivity decreases
when the porosity increases.
In both cases (crumb and crust), thermal conductivities
evolve after freezing and thawing on the contrary to the
phenomena generally observed. Thermal conductivities of
crumb and crust have tendency to become the same. Rib-
otta and Le Bail (2007) showed that freezing and thawing
induces signicant changes in bread crumb. These changes
could explain thermal conductivity evolution by modifying
the internal structure of crumb and crust and by creating
preferential paths for heat. It is therefore necessary for
the study of thawingbaking of frozen part-baked bread
to determine the thermal conductivity of bread after
freezing.
3.3. Variation of thermal conductivity of crumb and crust
according to the temperature
Measurements of thermal conductivity of crumb and
crust were carried out at dierent temperatures in equilib-
rium conditions. At the beginning of each experiment, sam-
ples were taken from frozen part baked bread. Fig. 4 shows
variations of this property in function of temperature for
crumb and crust. Both curves are similar. Before the initial
freezing point, thermal conductivity rises with temperature.
At the initial freezing point, thermal conductivity decreases
and then increases with temperature. The discontinuity of
thermal conductivity at the initial freezing point can be
explained by the phase change because of the higher con-
ductivity of ice than water. Global increase is due to the
increase of the thermal conductivity of the components
and to the evaporationcondensation phenomenon. The
comparison between crumb and crust values give that the
thermal conductivities are the same. However crumbs
porosity and moisture content are higher than for crust.
It is known that thermal conductivity increases with
increasing moisture content and decreasing porosity. Here
the two eects compensate themselves. In case of crumb
and crust before freezing, this compensation does not occur
(Hamdami, Monteau, & Le Bail, 2004). After freezing and
thawing, crumb and crust seem to reach the same proper-
ties and behaviour.
3.4. Validation of thermal conductivity measurement in
non-isothermal conditions
Fig. 5 presents the comparison between values obtained
in isothermal conditions and in non-isothermal conditions
during thawing and baking for a crumb at moisture con-
tent 0.46 kg/kg product and at porosity 0.77. This gure
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
crumb crust
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
Before freezing After freezing and thawing
Fig. 3. Comparison of thermal conductivity of crumb and crust before
and after freezing and thawing. Vertical bars represent standard deviation.
Table 2
Moisture content, apparent density and porosity of crumb and crust
before and after freezing and thawing
Crumb Crust
Before After Before After
Moisture content
(kg water/kg product)
0.462 0.463 0.350 0.350
Standard deviation 0.002 0.001 0.012 0.006
Apparent density (kg m
3
) 268 215 476 456
Standard deviation 14 5 32 70
Porosity 0.767 0.815 0.641 0.651
Standard deviation 0.012 0.004 0.025 0.054
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
0.45
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Temperature (C)
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
crumb crust
Fig. 4. Evolution of thermal conductivity of crumb and crust according to
the temperature.
V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882 879
shows three repetitions of non-stop measurements in the
oven. The experiment was repeated 10 times and gave the
same values. Therefore the measurement method was
repeatable. Furthermore it appears that values are similar
for a product with the same porosity and moisture content
in case of isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. This
method derived from the line heat source probe for mea-
surement in unsteady conditions has thus been validated,
allowing a signicant saving of time.
3.5. Estimation of parameters in thermal conductivity models
Previous experiments permitted to adjust the dierent
models by evaluation of the parameters f
evacon
and f
k
.
Figs. 6 and 7 show experimental and predicted values of
thermal conductivity for crumb and crust, respectively.
Values of parameters are given in Table 3.
In both cases, series model underestimates thermal con-
ductivity. In the case of crumb, the best estimations was
given by Krischers and parallel models. Below the initial
freezing point, Krischers model better estimates thermal
conductivity. The root mean square of error (RMSE) for
Krischers model is 0.035 while values are 0.071, 0.088
and 0.054 respectively, for parallel, series and Maxwells
models. After thawing, thermal conductivity of crumb fol-
lows only the parallel model at baking temperatures: the
RMSE falls then at 0.024 while for Krischers, Maxwells
and series models the RMSE are 0.028, 0.049 and 0.065,
respectively. For crust, Krischers model is always better
than others models (RMSE: 0.017). The Maxwells model
gives also good results (RMSE: 0.030) in comparison with
parallel and series models (respectively RMSE of 0.057 and
0.064).
Krischers model gives the best results because of struc-
tural factor which is adjusted against the experimental
results.
The resistance factor of crumb is higher than that of
crust. This can be explained by the evaporationcondensa-
tion phenomenon. Indeed this phenomenon increases with
porosity. In the case of frozen part baked bread, the part of
the series model in Krischers model is more signicant for
crust than for crumb. In comparison with results obtained
by Hamdami et al. (2004) resistance factor and structural
factor during freezing and during thawing and baking are
dierent. As seen previously, behaviours of crumb and
crust tend to approach themselves after freezing: evapora-
tioncondensation increase plays a more important part
in heat transfer of crust after freezing. Structural and
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
-20 0 20 40 60 80
Temperature (C)
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
baking 1
baking 2
baking 3
in isotherm conditions
Fig. 5. Thermal conductivity of crumb at moisture 0.46 kg/kg product
and a porosity of 0.77.
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
0.45
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Temperature( C)
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y
(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
crumb (exp) Parallel Series Maxwell Krischer
Fig. 6. Experimental and predicted values of thermal conductivity for
crumb.
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Temperature (C)
T
h
e
r
m
a
l

c
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y
(
W

m
-
1

C
-
1
)
crust (exp) Parallel Series Maxwell Krischer
Fig. 7. Experimental and predicted values of thermal conductivity for
crust.
Table 3
Identied values of the resistance factor and structural factor for frozen
part baked bread
Property Crumb Crust
Porosity 0.77 0.04 0.55 0.05
Total water mass fraction
(kg water/kg product)
0.46 0.006 0.32 0.01
Resistance factor, f
evacon
0.21 0.12
Structural factor, f
k
0.13 0.19
880 V. Jury et al. / Food Research International 40 (2007) 874882
resistance factors decrease for crumb and increase in the
case of crust for a frozen part baked bread in comparison
with fresh part baked bread (Hamdami et al., 2004). Dur-
ing thawing and baking, heat conduction occurs in a dier-
ent way than during freezing.
3.6. Validation of models during the thawingbaking of
frozen part baked bread
Once the values of the parameters of the selected models
(parallel and Krischer) were determined as seen previously,
the two better models were validated during the thawing
baking of frozen part baked bread. Fig. 8 shows the
comparison between experimental values of thermal con-
ductivity of crumb and simulated values by the parallel
and Krischers models during thawing and nal baking of
frozen part baked bread. The parallel and Krischers
models present respectively, a RMSE of 0.040 and 0.025
at subfreezing temperature and 0.005 and 0.02, respec-
tively above initial freezing temperature. Krischers model
under-estimates always the thermal conductivity. At sub-
freezing temperature, parallel model over-estimates ther-
mal conductivity and above initial freezing temperature it
gives a very good estimation of thermal conductivity of
crumb.
4. Conclusion
This paper shows that the line heat source method can
be used in unsteady conditions to measure the thermal con-
ductivity, allowing signicant saving of time for experimen-
tal procedure. The thermal conductivity changes
throughout the manufacturing process and in particular
before and after the freezingthawing phase for a same
temperature value. Thus the use of an equation which
would give the thermal conductivity only vs. the tempera-
ture is not possible: the manufacturing phase (cooling,
freezing, thawing and baking) has to be taken into account.
Comparison of the various models of thermal conductivity
shows that the parallel model has to be preferred to simu-
late the thermal conductivity throughout freezing and
baking.
Acknowledgements
Luc Guihard and Christophe Couedel are acknowledged
for technical support. This work was partially supported by
a doctoral grant from the Region Pays de Loire (France)
and by a nancial support from the Commission of the
European Communities, FP6, Thematic Area Food qual-
ity and safety, FOOD-2006-36302 EU-FRESH BAKE. It
does not necessarily reect its views and in no way antici-
pates the Commissions future policy in this area.
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