‘Unit operations’ is the study of the principles and equipment associated with food processing. Fluidics, thermodynamics and heat transfer are all featured as experimental setups around the room. A particularly interesting development has been the acquisition of two Byrotronics process control rigs which allow the study of different control strategies involving a heating system and an assembly line operation.  The involvement of computer software allows some very imaginative real time simulations and provides the opportunity to develop a strategy to outwit the control brain of a microprocessor.

Most physical properties of materials can be measured using the equipment in this room, from powder density to fluid viscosity. The TXT2 texture analyser, Brabender Farinograph and the Textomatic apparatus deal with texture measurements. A colour meter allows precise matching of colours and a variety of viscometers analyse flow properties of fluids. There is also a moisture analyser.