BEHAVIOR EVALUATION OF THE FLUID DYNAMICS OF A DRYING PROCESS TO OBTAIN ROOF TILES

Resumo

Currently, several researches have been developed on the drying of ceramic materials, most of which
are carried out experimentally. This process requires high investments and energy consumption, resulting in high
costs for companies in the sector. The drying process can be defined as a unit operation that consists of removing
water from porous materials through heat transfer. So, aiming at a better cost benefit, it is common to use
theoretical solutions that allow, with relative ease of replication and low cost, to change operational and geometric
conditions of the dryer or drying object. In this sense, this work aims to predict the drying process of a ceramic
tile in a kiln via computational fluid dynamics (CFD). To carry out the simulations, the commercial package Ansys
CFX® 22.R1 was used. For a drying temperature of 82,7 °C, the results of drying and heating kinetics, product
moisture content, oven air velocity and pressure are displayed and analyzed. A comparison between predicted and
experimental data of the average moisture content of the tile throughout the process was performed and a good
agreement was obtained