Design and operational performance of conveyor-belt drying structures

The design and operational characteristics of conveyor-belt dryers constitute an important field of chemical engineering, which is still governed by empiricism. In this work, both aspects were studied in a straightforward way based on mathematical reasoning. A mathematical model describing the convective drying process was developed. Design procedures aimed at the determination of optimum equipment arrangement, size and operational characteristics for conveyor-belt dryers were carried out by optimizing the total annual cost of each equipment arrangement for a given production capacity. All dryer arrangements were compared by evaluating optimum configurations for a wide range of production capacity values. Once the dryer configuration was specified, its operational performance was evaluated by comparing the optimum operational cost versus production capacity for a specific optimum designed structure. An example covering the drying of sliced potato is included to demonstrate the performance of each design case, as well as the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.