Abstract
The drying process is a step of ceramic brick production which requires the control of process variables to provide a final product with a porous uniform structure, reducing superficial and volumetric defects and production costs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is an important tool in this process control, predicting the drying physical phenomenon and providing data that improve the industrial efficiency production. Furthermore, research involving CFD brick drying has neglected the effects of oven parameters, limiting the analysis only to the bricks. In this sense, the aim of this work is to numerically study the hot air-drying process of an industrial hollow ceramic brick in an oven at 70 °C. The results of the water mass and temperature distributions inside the brick, as well as moisture, temperature, velocity and pressure fields of the oven drying air at different process times are shown, analyzed and compared with experimental data, presenting a good agreement.
Highlights
The process of moisture removal from a porous material is essential in the food industry as a way of increasing the aliments’ shelf life, or in the ceramic industry as a step in the brick production process.Ceramics have been widely used by man since the Neolithic period, due to their simple method of production and their wide application in different fields
To show the accuracy of the adopted mathematical model, the temporal evolution of the surface temperature and average water mass of the ceramic brick were compared with experimental data
It is possible conclude that: The drying and heating kinetic curves showed good agreement with the experimental data, The drying and heating kinetic curves showed good agreement with the experimental data, since since the liquid diffusion model was adopted, and the thermal energy used to evaporate the brick the liquid diffusion model was adopted, and the thermal energy used to evaporate the brick mass mass water was not taken into account
Summary
The process of moisture removal from a porous material is essential in the food industry as a way of increasing the aliments’ shelf life, or in the ceramic industry as a step in the brick production process.Ceramics have been widely used by man since the Neolithic period, due to their simple method of production and their wide application in different fields. The process of moisture removal from a porous material is essential in the food industry as a way of increasing the aliments’ shelf life, or in the ceramic industry as a step in the brick production process. The main raw materials for the production of traditional ceramics are feldspar (mainly potassium), silicon (quartz) and clay minerals. They can present some natural or synthetic additives, to increase their processing capacity and final properties [1]. The final step is the exposure of the material to high temperatures, which provides rigidity and resistance to ceramic products (firing process)
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