Convective Drying of Agitated Silica Gel and Beech Wood Particle Beds—Experiments and Transient DEM-CFD Simulations

Abstract

With coupled discrete element (DEM)–computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, drying processes can be simultaneously described on the system scale while resolving detailed subprocesses on the particle scale. In this contribution, DEM-CFD simulations are used to analyze the transient heat and mass transfer in mechanically agitated particle beds during drying. Results are compared to convective batch-drying experiments with silica gel and beech wood spheres and mixing effects are studied in detail. A good agreement with the measurements of both single-particle and particle bed drying is achieved by resolving heat and moisture transport three-dimensionally inside each particle.

Keywords:

• Agitated particle bed
• Convective drying
• DEM-CFD simulation
• Experimental validation
• Single particle