Flow modeling can be used to understand and optimize various components of food process lines, such as: cooling tunnels, hardening tunnels, cheese grater cleaning, scraped surface heat exchangers, fermentation of beer, and spray drying of milk powders, to name a few. Flow modeling complements experimental testing by reducing the number of equipment prototypes required. In the design of food processing equipment, Fluent software can aid in the evaluation of process characteristics including estimates of residence time, cooking time, process lethality, and product temperatures. The flow and heat transfer simulations are performed without taking the production equipment off-line, resulting in significant cost savings.

By analyzing the thermal characteristics of a cooling tunnel, the CFD model determines whether the product has reached the desired temperature. Variations in temperature across the production line are also computed.