Curved Retainer and High-Speed Airflow for Instant Noodle Drying
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Solution Overview
Problem
Non-fried instant noodles tend to stick together during drying, making them difficult to loosen and rehydrate, with existing methods failing to provide sufficient loosening and uniform drying.
Innovation Solution
A retainer with a curved transition portion from the bottom to the side surface, having a radius of curvature between 5 to 15 mm, is used, and a high-speed air flow is blown from above to prevent sticking and achieve uniform drying.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If non-fried noodles are dried in air using conventional retainers, then the noodles maintain a denser texture closer to fresh noodles, but the noodle strings stick together and become hard to loosen
Solution Approach 1:
The retainer's bottom surface is designed with a curved transition portion having a radius of curvature of 5 to 15 mm, eliminating sharp corners. This curvature prevents noodle strings from accumulating at corner portions during drying, thereby preventing sticking while maintaining the desired dense texture. The curved surface allows air flow to distribute uniformly across the noodle mass.
Solution Approach 2:
A high-speed air flow is blown from above the retainer to perform drying. This pneumatic approach replaces conventional low-speed air drying, creating sufficient airflow to prevent noodle string contact and sticking while maintaining the bulky shape and loose structure necessary for easy loosening and rehydration.
2Ease of operation
If a bulky-shaped noodle mass is prepared to reduce contact area among noodle strings, then sticking is reduced, but existing methods fail to provide sufficient loosening effect
Solution Approach 1:
The curved bottom surface with radius of curvature of 5 to 15 mm creates a bulky noodle mass shape that reduces contact area among noodle strings. The curvature ensures uniform distribution of noodles throughout the retainer, preventing accumulation at corners or bottom surfaces, thereby achieving both bulky shape and reliable loosening effect.
Solution Approach 2:
The high-speed air flow from above generates sufficient aerodynamic forces to lift and separate noodle strings during drying. This creates a bulky, loose noodle mass structure that maintains separation throughout the drying process, ensuring reliable loosening effect that conventional low-speed drying cannot achieve.
3Ease of operation
If air is blown upward from below the retainer to prevent sticking, then some loosening effect is achieved, but the air force is weakened by collision with the bottom surface, reducing drying efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of blowing air upward from below the retainer, the invention reverses the direction and blows high-speed air from above the retainer downward. This inversion eliminates the collision with the bottom surface, maintaining full air force throughout the drying process and significantly improving drying efficiency while still achieving effective loosening.
Solution Approach 2:
The high-speed air flow from above maintains its full force without collision, creating more effective drying and loosening. The pneumatic force is applied directly to the noodle mass from the top, creating sufficient aerodynamic lift and separation without the energy loss that occurs when air collides with the bottom surface.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The method effectively prevents noodle string sticking and improves loosening, resulting in easily loosened and uniformly dried noodles with excellent rehydration properties.
Implementation Method 1
a high-speed air flow is blown from above to perform the drying
Implementation Method 2
the retainer has a shape such that a transition portion from a bottom surface to a side surface is formed to be a curved surface with a radius of curvature of 5 to 15 mm
Data Source
AI summary
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for drying non-fried instant noodles for obtaining non-fried noodles that are easily loosened without sticking of noodle strings and excellent in restorability. The present invention includes, as a step of drying non-fried instant noodles, a step of putting gelatinized noodle strings into a drying retainer, and blowing a high-speed air flow from above the retainer toward a noodle mass of the noodle strings to perform drying. In the drying step, the retainer employed has a shape such that a transition portion from a bottom surface to a side surface (side wall portion) is formed to be a curved surface with a radius of curvature of 5 to 15 mm, and preferably the high-speed air flow is blown at a wind speed of 50 m/s or higher in terms of the speed to which the noodle strings are exposed.