Micro-perforated packaging has been known to maintain the quality of fresh produceby increasing gas exchange volume through polymer films. Even though by far severalmathematical models have been proposed to predict gas exchange process of micro perforated films, to the best of author's knowledge, there are no statistical methods usedto analyze the models themselves. Therefore, the aim of this research was to employinverse problem technique (ordinary least square, sequential and bootstrap methods) tomodel gas exchange process of micro-perforated packaging based on a different approach, and to assess the validity of the prediction. The prediction model involved hydrodynamic flow (minor head loss theory) and diffusion flow (total pressure gradient ≠0). To better predict hydrodynamic flow, the entrance shape of micro perforations was analyzed under SEM. To test the prediction model, experimental data sets were evaluated together with a published data set. The predicted results had high agreement with both data groups, and all the predicted values fell within the asymptotic and bootstrap confidence and prediction bands showing the reliability of the model. Besides, the condition number (cond(J) =1) and bootstrap residual analysis further verified the validity of the model. Due to the slight difference from the reference boundary values, parameters in the model were also accurately estimated by inverse problem technique.
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