Influence of Spray Drying Conditions on Residue Accumulation—Simulation Using CFD

Abstract

The Computational Fluid Dynamics code FLUENT 5.3 is used to study how changes in spray drying operating conditions can affect the fouling of the equipment during drying. A set of experiments was conducted on a laboratory spray dryer keeping constant the feed rate, the feed temperature, the air inlet temperature and the atomizer pressure, and varying the compressed air flow rate and the flow rate of drying air. This set of data was simulated using the CFD package FLUENT 5.3. The same trends were observed between experimental data and the simulations in terms of the effects of the investigated parameters. Residue accumulation increased with decreases of compressed air flow rate and flow rate of drying air. The simulation results give a better understanding of several phenomena that appear during spray drying and can sharply reduce the number of experiments needed to find a solution to the fouling problem.

Keywords:

• Computational fluid dynamics
• Heat and mass transfer
• Modeling
• Particle trajectory
• Spray dryer
• Tomato pulp