Problem 3 modelling ​
Food safety precautions state that, when a certain food is being reheated, it should either:
reach a temperature of above
for at least seconds or, reach a maximum core temperature of at least
in order to make it safe to eat.
An industrial kitchen models a reheating process using the formula
where
Determine whether this process should be considered safe, or whether the process needs to be altered, explaining your answer.
Let
equal the duration for which the temperature of the product is above , and let the maximum temperature of the product be
Give the value of
Hint
To see if the first criterion is satisfied, we are interested in solving the inequality
Hint
To see if the second criterion is satisfied, we need to find the maximum value of
We can do this by completing the square, or by considering the symmetry of the parabola.
Solution
To see if the first criterion is satisfied, we are interested in solving the inequality
We find the roots first
Let's make a sketch:
Looking at the sketch, we see that the temperature is above
By symmetry, the maximum temperature would occur at the midpoint of
Since the duration above