Optimize, upgrade or invest in novel dryer? – A brick factory case study

Drying has an enormous impact on the quality of final masonry clay elements. The accumulated knowledge about modeling the drying process, as well as the registered progress in computing the coupling between the heat and mass transfer during the last decade has reached the applicative industrial level. The available novel commercial drying solutions have dropped the drying cycle to 5 hours for hollow clay products and up to 9 hours for clay blocks of large size and weight. The ability to speed up the drying process also strongly depends on the properties of the raw materials. The decision on optimization of the existing dryer and its upgrade or investment in a novel drying facility must be experimentally validated. Results of the one-month monitoring and analysis of the production process in one Serbian brick factory including the material and energy balances are given in this paper. Based on the collected data, raw material limitations and costs of the novel dryer the existing tunnel dryer upgrade and the minimization of the "false" ambient air into the dryer are proposed.