In many food production processes, such as baking, the correct portioning of the starting materials is a decisive factor. Simulations can help to better understand the interaction of dosage on the one hand and process parameters of the manufacturing process on the other hand and to optimize the quality of the product. When baking muffins, for example, both the initial amount of dough and the heating process in the oven plays an important role. These parameters can be modelled in the simulation in order to virtually evaluate target values such as product shape, homogeneity or baking progress. Unwanted effects such as overflowing or raw dough inside are then a thing of the past.

With Meshfree, the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) are providing an innovative software product for corresponding tasks. It is about the grid-free simulation of physical processes. “With Meshfree, we are meeting the challenges of the food industry with innovative simulation,” says Dr Jörg Kuhnert, expert at the ITWM. “Almost all processes and procedures that are in the focus of industry practice can be calculated and virtually realized using the software solution. Companies can optimize their processes and often not only save resources, but also time and money.”

The specification of the material properties such as viscosity or elasticity in the form of a shear modulus is sufficient to predict the behaviour of the medium with the software solution. By means of the software product, coating, extrusion, forming, homogenizing, injection, kneading, pressing and stirring processes can be simulated.