OPTIMIZATION OF AERODYNAMIC CONDITIONS OF THE CHAMBER DRIER OPERATION

Wood utilization is a critical direction of the industrial production advancement, where desiccation of wood holds a prominent place. Convective drying in chamber driers is the presentday dominant technique for wood desiccation. Nevertheless, available scientific literature on the subject does not place high emphasis on the issue of gas flow structure inside the drier installations and, in particular, in the clearance between horizontal rows of stacked saw timber. Whereas, the air flowing between horizontal rows facilitates wood heating and moisture removing from the boundary layer. The present article studies aerodynamics of the experimental timber drying test stand at the A. V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of NAS of Belarus. The timber drying test stand geometry structure is complicated, which is why aerodynamics valuation of the drier agent in the chamber involves the software system ANSYS Fluent 14.5. For that end, the researchers developed the convective drier installation geometrical model. A physico-mathematical simulation was developed for sawn timber convective drying aerodynamics in the timber drying test stand of the Heat and Mass Transfer Institute. Based on the computations made, the drier agent flow configuration was analyzed, stagnant pockets identified. It was found that the timber drying test stand was not operating within its optimal aerodynamic conditions. The drying chamber optimal aerodynamic conditions determination includes accounting for an additional canal between the chamber rear wall and the timber stack, absence of the screen above the stack, and presence of the screen between the floor and the stack. As well as variation of the drying agent speed, pressure differrential at the blower, the inter-row gobb amount variation. The paper offers recommendations on optimizing the drying installation aerodynamics based on the numerical simulation results. To this effect, speed of the drier agent in the chamber should be reduced at the expense of reduction of pressure differential at the blower: from initial (150 Pa) to final (90 Pa). It is necessary as well to install an additional screen between the chamber floor and the stack.

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