NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE DRYING PROCESS BY ACTIVE VENTILATION OF THE PRODUCTS OF FRACTIONAL PROCESSING OF LEGUMES IN A CONVECTIVE BELT DRYER

Abstract

The process of removing moisture from vegetable agricultural raw materials is a diverse, but energy-consuming stage of production, regardless of the applied methods and methods of drying. For forecasting energy consumption and designing drying equipment, analysis and generalization of the kinetics and dynamics of drying of plant raw materials is an urgent task. Based on the results of the conducted research, the technological and constructive-technological scheme of the convective belt dryer for the fractional processing of leguminous herbs was theoretically justified. The dryer is made in the form of a chamber with horizontal belt conveyors, in the middle of which there are heaters with heated steam, and in the upper part of the chamber there are centrifugal fans. With the help of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software package, a simulation of the technological process of drying in the developed dryer was carried out. Visualizations of the particle flow velocity distribution of products of fractional processing of legumes and air flow in the area of the convective belt dryer in the form of scalar and vector data were obtained. The temperature distribution of the air flow in the area of the convective belt dryer was also determined in a scalar form, which made it possible to detect its influence on the temperature of the alfalfa particles moving along the belt conveyors. The obtained results of numerical modeling confirmed the analytical calculations. However, for a more complete evaluation and optimization of dryer parameters, it is recommended to conduct additional experimental studies of the drying process of products of fractional processing of leguminous herbs and empirically check the rational structural and technological parameters of the convective belt dryer.