Understanding the dynamics of a tunnel oven : Use of infrared sensors to measure the temperature of the conveyor belt in a tunnel oven used in bread production.

Sammanfattning: During the continuous production of bread sometimes there are problems that lead to interruptions in the production and consequently to quality problems. One such problem is the bread burning in the contact area between the bread and the conveyor belt. In order to understand the problem and to know how to quantify it, it is necessary to understand what a thermodynamic system is and what types of systems exist, how the various types of heat transfer are processed, how to measure the temperature of an object by infrared radiation and some mathematical methods such as the least square root method. Temperature measurements were planned and carried out. The goal with the first experiment was to understand how the temperature of the conveyor belt varies during an interruption. All the other tests were done to investigate the effects of different solutions in the temperature variation of the belt. According to the results, the best solution is to turn off the oven during an interruption and the worst to spray the belt with water. To spray the belt with water may be a better solution than these results shows, but it is very affected by other problems, like depositions of limestone on the nozzles. A lot more solutions could be found but due to the time available, it was not possible to investigate all the variables/solutions in the process. A long-term  study would help understand much more within the regulation of the industrial baking process.