Belt Drying

Guide to the Belt Dryer Demo

Aspen Technology
Bedford, MA
2014

© 2013 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved

 Why is Convective Drying important?

▪ Problem: High Energy

Consumption
▪ Benefit: Optimizing
design and operation
reduces energy use by
15-25%

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 Convective Drying – Drying Curves

Drying periods
▪ Initial period
▪ Heat the wet solids

▪ Constant rate period

(1st drying period)
▪ Dry moisture on surface
▪ Moisture content above
critical moisture content

▪ Falling rate period

(2nd drying period)
▪ Dry moisture inside particles
▪ Moisture content below
critical moisture content and
above equilibrium moisture
content
▪ Ends at equilibrium moisture
content

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 Convective Drying – Model Description

▪ Flow patterns

Co-current

Cross-current
Counter-current
▪ Solids in plug flow in axial, ideally mixed
in lateral direction, gas in plug flow
▪ Solids ideally mixed, gas in plug flow

▪ Drying model
– Based on drying kinetics
– Normalized drying curve to consider falling rate drying
– Mass transfer coefficient between particles and gas:
▪ Sherwood number
▪ Mass transfer coefficient
▪ Product of mass transfer coefficient and surface area
▪ Number of Transfer Units
– Heat Transfer Coefficient user defined or calculated

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 Normalized Drying Curve

▪ Normalized drying curve describes the falling rate period

Normalized drying rate Normalized moisture content

current drying rate X  X eq X: Current moisture content

v( )   Xcr: Critical moisture content
drying rate 1st drying period X cr  X eq Xeq: Equilibrium moisture content

normalization

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 How to determine the normalized drying
curve from measured data?

▪ The normalized drying curve can be obtained based on data

from a drying experiment like shown below

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 How to determine the normalized drying
curve from measured data?
▪ Step 1: Determine critical moisture content, equilibrium moisture content

– Current case
▪ Critical moisture content: Xcrit = 0.16 kg/kg
▪ Equilibrium moisture content: Xequi = 0.005 kg/kg

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 How to determine the normalized drying
curve from measured data?

▪ Step 2: Calculate the drying rate and determine the drying rate at the 1st
drying period

Current case
▪ Constant drying rate: MI = 1.65 g/(kg*s)

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 How to determine the normalized drying
curve from measured data?

▪ Step 3: Calculate normalized drying rate and normalized moisture content

current drying rate X  X eq

v( )  
drying rate 1st drying period X cr  X eq

▪ Critical moisture content: Xcrit = 0.16 kg/kg

▪ Equilibrium moisture content: Xequi = 0.005 kg/kg

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 10
Convective Dryer Forms define critical
Drying Curve Tab and equilibrium
moisture content
define
normalized
drying curve by
tabular data or
use of a function

normalized
normalized drying rate
moisture
content

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 Convective Drying - Belt Dryer

▪ The following example will demonstrate how a Belt Dryer

could be modeled and optimized with Aspen Plus
– Modeling of a complex apparatus
▪ Several drying zones with profiles of air recirculation and
temperature along the dryer
▪ Cooling zone with heat recovery

preheated make-up air

ambient air
Humid exhaust air

zone 1 zone 2 zone zone zone cooling zone

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 Open the File ‘Belt Dryer Base Case.bkp’

Drying gas (G1) is preheated

by the primary heater and
then distributed to chambers

Each chamber has its own

heater to reheat the
circulation air
It is possible to add cooling
stages at the end of the
dryer for heat recovery

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 Objective

Goals
▪ Wet solids must be dried from 261g H2O/kg Al2O3 to less
than 11g/kg
▪ We want to reduce energy demand by at least 10%

Constraints
▪ Throughput must not be changed (2 tons/hr)
▪ Temperature profile should not change substantially

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Select DryerSpecification Layout

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STAGE1 (Dryer)

Define the
Drying Curve

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STAGE1 (Dryer) – Drying Curve

The critical moisture

content is 0.1kg
H2O/kg AL2O3

The normalized drying

curve is used to model the
2nd drying period

Here it is defined by a table

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 Run the Model

Run the model

Open the layout DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

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 DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

Temp fluctuation due to

Solids heated numerical error.
slowly (1st drying
Period)
Inlet: 300K All heat for
Inlet: 261 g/kg vaporization
dry so constant
solids temp.

2nd drying period

Rising solids Temp. Outlet: 354K
Outlet: 6.14g/kg
dry

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STAGE4 (Dryer) – Results Profiles - Plot

Outlet: 354K

We can reuse the energy

of the hot solids leaving
the dryer by adding a
cooling stage

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DryerProfilesAndEnergyConsumption

Solids temperature in
the last stage is
quite high (~354K)
See expanded energy
demand calculation
on next page

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Calculating the Energy Demand

The outlet temperature of the

heaters is set to a user-defined
value and the heat duty of each
heater can be determined using
a calculator

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Custom Tables – EN-DEMAN tab

89% of energy
is consumed by
the primary heater

We can add a
cooling stage which can
be used to preheat the
air for the primary heater

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Open the File ‘Belt Dryer With Cooling Stage.bkp’

Notice that a
cooling stage has
been added in the
alternative design

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CoolingStageSpecificaiton View

All specifications for

the new dryer,
except the length,
are the same

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 Run the Model

Run the model

Open the layout “DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture”

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 DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

Profiles are
very similar
to base case

Cooling Chamber:
Solids cooled to air Solids outlet moisture
T while air is heated below specification
~5K© 2013 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved | 26
DryerProfilesAndEnergyConsumption View

4% decrease
in energy demand

The target is
10% decrease

Since the solids

moisture is below
spec, we can reduce
mass flow of the
drying air

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Activate Optimization and Constraints

Do not activate Sensitivity

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 OptimizationSetup View

Variables
▪ ENERGY: total energy demand of the dryer
▪ XWATER: moisture content of the product on a dry basis
– Defined using SWATER: mass fraction of water in the product
Objective
▪ Minimize ENERGY
Optimization Variable
▪ Vary mass flow of drying air (G1)
Constraint
▪ XWATER ≤ 11g/kg dry

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Setting the Optimization

Vary G1 from 4 to
5 kg/s

Base case is 5kg/s

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Setting the Constraint

Moisture content of
Water must be less than
11g/kg dry

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 Run the Simulation and View Results

• Optimized Gas Flow Rate

• ~4.35kg/s

• Deactivate Optimization

• Enter 4.35 kg/s for the

stream G1

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Review the results from the optimization

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Review the results from the optimization

Final energy demand

is reduced by 15% to
~306.4kWH/ton

Final moisture content is

~11g/kg wet

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 Summary

Problem
▪ Reduce energy demand while staying within required
moisture specification and throughput
Solution
▪ Add a cooling stage
▪ Use Optimization and Constraint to determine the optimal
conditions while staying on spec
Result
▪ Energy demand reduced by 15%
▪ No substantial change in temperature profile

© 2013 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved | 35