Energies (Apr 2020)

Convective Drying of Ceramic Bricks by CFD: Transport Phenomena and Process Parameters Analysis

  • Morgana de Vasconcellos Araújo,
  • Balbina Raquel de Brito Correia,
  • Vanderson Alves Agra Brandão,
  • Iran Rodrigues de Oliveira,
  • Rosilda Sousa Santos,
  • Guilherme Luiz de Oliveira Neto,
  • Leonardo Pereira de Lucena Silva,
  • Antonio Gilson Barbosa de Lima

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/en13082073
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 8
p. 2073

Abstract

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In the manufacturing process of ceramic brick, the step of drying needs the control of process variables to uniformly dry the porous material, producing a good end-product. The majority of numerical simulations involving drying of ceramic materials is performed considering only the solid domain, resulting in a very simplified and limited study. This way, the objective of this work is the analysis of the drying process with hot air of an industrial hollow clay brick inside the oven at different temperatures by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD). The results of the temperature and water mass distribution inside the brick and of air in the oven at different times of the drying process are shown, analyzed and checked with experimental data, and it was obtained in a concordance with the data. An equation to calculate the brick water mass diffusivity depending on the drying air temperature was proposed.

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