Isothermal Air Flow Investigation in Industrial Baking Oven of Different Impeller Locations using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Approach

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling was performed on a forced convection oven to investigate the isothermal airflow. Three oven design configurations based on their impeller location (back, side, and top wall) were compared with respect to their Turbulence Kinetic Energy (TKE) profile to determine the optimal configuration design for quick uniform baking. The air velocity was estimated from both experimental and modelling approaches at specific points in an oven with the back walled impeller. The CFD model was validated resulting in a calculation error of 30.34% of actual velocity which was mainly due to limitation in grid density and the turbulence modelling. The other two oven configurations were simulated and their average TKE data were extracted and compared. The third configuration (impeller at the top wall) was found to have the highest average TKE of 3.55 m2/s2 followed by the first configuration (impeller at the back wall) with 3.30 m2/s2 which provides a relatively uniform TKE distribution across the cavity. The findings show the significance of impeller placement in oven performance.