Thermophysical parameter estimation of a wool bobbin during convective drying process

In this work, an inverse heat transfer problem was solved by using experimental temperature data to estimate the effective thermal properties as well as the effective heat transfer coefficients on the inner and outer surfaces of a moist wool bobbin during a hot-air drying process. Before the inverse problem solution, the mathematical model of the drying wool bobbin was expressed by means of a single energy conservation equation and convenient boundary conditions, and then, the heat and mass transfer problem in the model was reduced to a heat conduction problem. The inverse problem was solved by direct method with finite difference scheme. Model temperatures obtained from the solution of the direct problem were used for verification of the effective thermophysical properties. The results with good agreement between the model and the experimental temperatures confirm the accuracy of the effective thermophysical properties of the bobbin estimated by the inverse method.