Enhancing the Environmental Efficiency of Cleaning-In-Place (CIP) Processes Through Swirl-Induced Sinusoidal Cleaning Patterns and Ultrasonic Monitoring

Cleaning-in-place (CIP) is a widely used technique in the food and beverage industry to clean equipment without disassembly, but it often involves high energy and water consumption. This study explores a sustainable CIP enhancement strategy by integrating a swirl pipe to modify internal flow dynamics and reduce cleaning time. Building on prior work that demonstrated real-time endpoint detection using an ultrasonic system, the current study investigates angular variations in cleaning performance across the pipe cross-section. The cleaning enhancement achieved by the introduction of swirl pipe results from the induced swirl flow, which increases wall shear stress thus improve the cleaning action. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations suggest that the shear stress along the pipe cross-section exhibit a sinusoidal pattern following the 4-lobed swirl pipe geometry. To experimentally verify this, a fully fouled pipe was used, and cleaning time was monitored at six angular positions using ultrasonic sensors. Fitting the experimental data using MATLAB’s lsqcurvefit function revealed a consistent sinusoidal pattern matching the simulation results. These findings not only provide experimental support for the modelling of shear stress distributions in CIP systems but also demonstrate the potential of ultrasonic monitoring for high-resolution, environmentally informed monitoring of CIP effectiveness. These findings support the development of cleaner, more efficient industrial cleaning process with reduced consumption.