Superheated steam drying of single wood particles: A characteristic drying curve model deduced from continuum model simulations and assessed by experiments

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and CFD coupled with discrete element method (DEM) are powerful approaches to describe the drying behavior of real drying towers. In these approaches, the heat and mass interaction between fluid phase and the wet solid is required as an essential input. In this work, a new methodology for establishing simple drying model of single wood particles is presented. First, a spatially resolved continuum-scale model that describes the coupled heat and mass transfer within a single porous wood particle during superheated steam drying under atmospheric pressure is developed. The thermophysical properties of wood particle required as input data for the continuum model are determined experimentally. Then sophisticated continuum model is reduced to a simpler lumped model, which is referred to as the characteristic drying curve (CDC) model. The continuum model simulations are performed in a board range of operating drying conditions and the associated results are used to establish correlations for the CDC model parameters. The results of both sophisticated and reduced models are validated against the experimental observations made using a magnetic suspension balance. The sensitivity analysis performed with the continuum model indicates a strong dependency of the critical moisture content on particle size and drying condition. The established CDC model can be implemented in the CFD or CFD-DEM model of superheated steam dryers.