Heat Transfer during Contact Drying

During contact dryingthe heat is transferred from heated surfaces to the product. 

The effective heat flow depends on the available heat transfer area (A), the temperature gradient (AT) between the heating medium and the product and a heat 

The heat that is transferred within a time unit can be simply calculated by Eq. 

The overall heat transfer coefficient a is a function of individual heat transfer coefficients that are the reciprocal of the of present heat transfer resistances [1]. 

The heat transfer inside the product is mainly dependent on the mixing of the bulk. 

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Suppose we take a sample of bone-dry air at some temperature, Ti, and directly contact it with water until it becomes saturated at the same temperature. The water vapor that enters into the air contains with it its latent heat of vaporization. The vapor pressure of water out of the liquid will be greater than it is in the saturated air, causing vaporization to occur and subsequently increasing the humidity of the air-water-vapor mixture. The process of vaporization ends when the vapor pressure of the water in the air becomes equal to that of the liquid. At this condition the air is saturated. During the air saturation process, isothermal conditions for the water can be maintained if heat is supplied to replace the heat lost from it to the gas as latent heat of vaporization. Thus, heat transfer during the saturation of a gas with a liquid can be accomplished without a temperature differential (although this is rarely encountered). This type of heat transfer phenomenon, better known as diffusional heat transfer, is different from conduction, convection or radiation. 

During the first period of drying, the liquid that covers the particle external surface and is present in the macropores evaporates. The material structure does not affect the rate of evaporation. The liquid evaporates with the rate at which heat is supplied to the surface. The rate of drying is thus limited by heat transfer between the particles and their surroundings. The temperature at the particle surface remains constant. If heat is delivered by convection this temperature is the wet-bulb gas temperature. In case of radiation (e.g. microwave driers) or conduction (e.g. indirect contact driers) the surface temperature ranges between the wet-bulb gas temperature and the boiling point of the liquid. The moisture content at the end of the constant rate of drying period is called the critical moisture content. 

There are three heat transfer mechanisms used to dry textiles. Conduction methods involve direct contact of the wet textile with heated surfaces. These are the most efficient heat transfer methods, but do not allow for control of fabric width during drying. Steam heated cylinders are examples of conduction drying methods... 

In confined space, the heat transfer enhancement is caused by evaporation a thin liquid film in near comer area (see Fig. 12) and dry spot formation on the channel wall. The dry spot formation in this area can explain low dependence of heat transfer coefficient on wall superheat [21]. For this case heat flux in vicinity of liquid-solid-vapor contact line has higher level due to evaporation in ultra thin film area [20]. In that way high level of heat transfer in vicinity of contact line is responsible for the heat transfer enhancement during boiling in mini-channels. The possibility of dry spot formation on the wall for water boiling in narrow annular channel was observed in [35] also. At wall superheat over 4.5 K the drying-out of liquid is responsible for decrease of heat transfer when the size of dry area becomes very large. 

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