A New Approach to Contact Drying Modelling

Abstract

This paper deals with contact drying modelling. The more general models of granular material contact dryers are based on assumptions proposed by Schlunder and al. (1.21. In this paper, a sensitivity study of the models is presented in order to find and to explain the influence of the different arameters. A new approach, based on the same Schlunder's assumptions, but with less restrictive hypothesis, which can be applied to drying in the presence of an inert gas as well as vacuum drying and which take into account phenomena which were ignored untill now such as the local grain dehydration kinetics or the vapour diffusion inside the bed has been developped. This new model has been compared uith some experimental results found in the litterature. A good agreement between the calculated and the experimental results has been observed. Moreover, this model is able to justify some assumptions made by Schlunder, which have not been so untill now.