COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER DURING MICROWAVE DRYING OF TIMBER

The need for improvement in engineering design and process optimization for microwave drying of wood has stimulated the development of computer simulation techniques to predict temperature and moisture history and distribution wood sample. A 3-D comprehensive heat and mass transfer model was developed to simulate the free liquid, vapor, and bound water movement including consideration of internal heat generation in microwave drying of yellow poplar specimens. The model was solved using the finite element analysis with FEMLAB software. The model predictions compared favorably with predicted and experimental solutions. The effect of changes of the most important parameters on the predictions of the model is also presented. The results showed that the variations of irradiation time, microwave power level and sample thickness played an important role in overall drying kinetics.