Applying Phenomenological Lumped Models in Drying Process of Hollow Ceramic Materials

Abstract

Drying is a complex process of coupledheat and mass transfer of wet porous material. Wet clay products when exposed to drying without control can suffer cracks and deformations, reducing its quality post-drying. Thus, this work aims to study the hollow ceramic materials drying with arbitrary shape using lumped models. Here, the exact solution of the governing equations were obtained using the method of separation of variables. Results of the average moisture constant and temperature of the material along the process are presented and analyzed. It was observed that the moisture loss process occurs at a lower speed than the heating of the ceramic material because its thermal diffusivity is greater than the mass diffusivity and that the area/volume relationship strongly affects the heat and mass transfer of the material.