Contact Drying of a Sheet of Moist Fibrous Material

Abstract

Drying processes consume a significant part of processing time and costs in the manufacture of papers, textiles, ceramics and other porous materials. An analysis was made of the phenomena constituting drying processes for porous materials and analytical expressions developed to describe the internal processes and boundary conditions. The analysis considered the departure from thermodynamic equilibrium associated with evaporation or condensation. The mass and energy conservation equation in one-dimensional form was solved by the finite difference technique. The results of this mathematical drying model were compared with the experimental data of Cowan [2] for the case of the drying of a disc-shaped mat. On the basis of this comparison, it was concluded that the analytical model is satisfactory for predicting the moisture and temperature distribution in moist porous material during drying.