Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis of Fluidized Bed Grain Drying

The effects of heat and mass transfer parameters on the efficiency of fluidized bed drying have been studied to optimize the input and output conditions. The analysis was carried out using two different materials, wheat and corn. Energy and exergy models based on the first and second law of thermodynamic are developed. Furthermore, some unified non-dimensional experimental correlations for predicting the efficiency of fluidized bed drying process have been proposed. The effects of hydrodynamics and thermodynamics conditions such as the inlet air temperature, the initial moisture content and well known Fourier and Reynolds numbers on energy efficiency and exergy efficiency were analyzed using the developed model. A good agreement was achieved between the model predictions, non-dimensional correlations and the available experimental results.