scholarly journals Reduction of Inrush Current in a Shockwave Non-Thermal Food Processing System Using an Exponential Clock Pulse Generator

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6095
Author(s):  
Kei Eguchi ◽  
Farzin Asadi ◽  
Akira Shibata ◽  
Hiroto Abe ◽  
Ichirou Oota

Recently, shockwave food processing is drawing much attention as a low-cost non-thermal food process technique. In shockwave non-thermal food processing, underwater shockwaves are generated by a high voltage generator. Therefore, high inrush currents and high voltage stress on circuit components significantly reduce the reliability and life expectancy of the circuit. However, to the best of our knowledge, stress reduction techniques and their experimental verification have not been studied yet in the shockwave non-thermal food processing system. In this paper, we propose a stress reduction technique for the shockwave non-thermal food processing system and investigate the effectiveness of the proposed technique experimentally. To achieve high reliability and life expectancy, a new high voltage multiplier with an exponential clock pulse generator is proposed for the shockwave non-thermal food processing system. By slowing down the rate at which the capacitors charge in the high voltage multiplier, the exponential clock pulse generator significantly reduces the inrush current. Furthermore, to perform shockwave non-thermal food processing continuously at a lower voltage level, we present a new electrode with a reset mechanism for wire electric discharge (WED), where a square-shaped metal wire swings on a hinge in the proposed electrode. The proposed electrode enables not only shockwave generation at a lower voltage level but also continuous non-thermal food processing, because the square-shaped metal wire is not melted in the WED process. To confirm the validity of the proposed techniques, some experiments are performed regarding the laboratory prototype of the shockwave non-thermal food processing system. In the performed experiments, reduction of inrush currents and effective food processing are confirmed.

1973 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 462-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
George D. Allen ◽  
J. Stanford Hutcheson

1976 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ohba ◽  
M. Aoki ◽  
K. Dohta ◽  
N. Hashimoto ◽  
M. Kubo

2014 ◽  
Vol 619 ◽  
pp. 173-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kei Eguchi ◽  
Sawai Pongswatd ◽  
Shinya Terada ◽  
Ichirou Oota

A high voltage multiplier is proposed for non-thermal food processing systems utilizing an underwater shockwave. Unlike conventional Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (CWVM) providing a DC output from an AC input, the proposed multiplier consists of two switched-capacitor-based DC-DC converters with different polarities. Owing to the symmetrical bipolar structure without magnetic component, the proposed multiplier can achieve faster response speed and lower voltage drop than the conventional CWVM. The theoretical analysis and simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis (SPICE) simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed voltage multiplier.


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