Comparison of CFD Simulation on Tray Dryer System Between Porous and Solid Product

• Main Author: Suhaimi, Misha
• Format: Book Section
• Language: English
• Published: WSEAS Press 2013
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery; TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/7410/1/Comparison_of_CFD_Simulation_on_Tray_Dryer_System_Between_Porous_and_Solid_Product.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/7410/; http://www.wseas.org
• Institution: Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka

Tray dryer is the most widely used because of its simple and economic design. The product is spread out on trays at an acceptable thickness. In a tray dryer, more products can be loaded as the trays are arranged at different levels. Most tray dryers use hot air stream where water is vaporized from the product and removed by air stream. The drawback of this dryer is non-uniformity in the desired moisture content of end product. The key to the successful operation of the tray dryer is uniform airflow distribution over the trays. Therefore, the good design of the drying chamber configuration in a tray dryer is necessary to obtain optimum performance. This research is to design the uniform airflow distribution throughout the drying chamber using CFD simulation. The products are represented by porous and solid (non-porous) product. Several configurations of trays position also was designed and simulated to determine the tray dryer with better airflow distribution. It was found that by using porous product the overall velocities in the drying chamber are lower than solid product since some of the hot air stream pass through the porous product. The design C was recommended to be developed for both porous and solid product which can produce more uniform drying and shorter drying time because of good temperature and velocity distribution throughout the drying chamber.