Pedro Henrique Paranhos Lima

Abstract

The wort cooling stage is an essential phase in the craft beer production process, as the rapid temperature reduction after boiling is necessary to prevent the prolife- ration of undesirable microorganisms and ensure the final quality of the beverage. In this context, counterflow chillers are widely used to promote heat transfer between the wort and the cooling water. However, the sizing of the equipment is often ne- glected, interfering with the quality of the final beer. Thus, this work proposes the development of a program in the Python language capable of numerically analyzing theheattransferprocessinachillerusedincraftbeerproduction. Tothisend, amo- del based on the heat equation for fluids in cylindrical coordinates was implemented, considering constant fluid properties and laminar flow. The adopted methodology is based on the variational formulation of the problem and its discretization using the Finite Element Method, implemented in the Python language, allowing the si- mulation of the temperature field inside the heat exchanger and the evaluation of the equipment’s thermal performance under different operational conditions.

Advising

Advisors: Anjos, G. R.; Barbedo, D. V.