Fasano, Antonio; Primicerio, Mario; Tesi, Andrea A mathematical model for spaghetti cooking with free boundaries. (English) Zbl 1263.76068 Netw. Heterog. Media 6, No. 1, 37-60 (2011). Summary: We propose a mathematical model for the process of dry pasta cooking with specific reference to spaghetti. Pasta cooking is a two-stage process: water penetration followed by starch gelatinization. Differently from the approach adopted so far in the technical literature, our model includes free boundaries: the water penetration front and the gelatinization onset front representing a fast stage of the corresponding process. Behind the respective fronts water sorption and gelatinization proceed according to some kinetics. The outer boundary is also moving and unknown as a consequence of swelling. Existence and uniqueness are proved and numerical simulations are presented. MSC: 76S05 Flows in porous media; filtration; seepage 35R35 Free boundary problems for PDEs 45G10 Other nonlinear integral equations Keywords:pasta cooking; free boundaries; nonlinear integral equations PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{A. Fasano} et al., Netw. Heterog. Media 6, No. 1, 37--60 (2011; Zbl 1263.76068) Full Text: DOI