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Meeting hygienic standards is essential for the food industry and many others to supply the consumer with safe product. Therefor automatic cleaning in place systems are spread widely within these industries, to maintain product quality. Inevitably, the cleaning process adds extra costs to production such as direct costs (e. g. cleaning liquid) and the loss of production time. In respect to the climate targets of the German Federal Republic, also consumption of resources in cleaning processes should be reduced. For prior reasons the optimization of cleaning processes lays in focus of the following research.

The research project “Discontinuous Cleaning 2” of the IVLV provides process know-how for machine vendors in the food processing industry. In the focus: The potential of pulsation and intermitting flows in increasing efficiency in jet cleaning of large and medium scale containers. The research project was carried out in cooperation between TU Darmstadt and TU Dresden. After the project finish in May 2018, research in this field is continued. Due to the long list of factors of influence, the jet is investigated from the point it is ejected from the nozzle throughout the disintegration during its travel towards the impingement plate. There the wall flow as well as related transfer mechanisms such as cleaning and heat transfer are characterized.