Investigation of Heat and Mass Transfer in the Process of Convective Heat Treatment and Drying of Thermal Insulation Materials and Approximate Equation of the Drying Curve

Abstract

The results of the study of heat treatment in the drying processes of thin thermal insulation materials based on the most general laws of convective drying of wet bodies with the establishment of the equation of the drying curve are presented. The numerical values of heat and mass transfer Biot numbers for the period of decreasing drying rate are established, too. Based on the study and analysis of numerous sources, the ranges of changes in the Lykov, Posnov, and phase transformation criteria for the processes of heat treatment of ceramics, asbestos, felt, and clay plates have been approximately determined. It is demonstrated that for values of Biot numbers less than one, for Lykov criteria value of 0.05–0.13 and for Posnov criteria value of 0.03–0.08 for drying modes with a temperature of 90–120 ° C, the task of drying, as a heat and mass transfer process, is external, and internal transfer does not affect the conditions of interaction of the material surface with the environment. It is also shown that the drying of thin materials takes place when the Biot number is less than one and, under the conditions of an external problem, the similarity criteria do not affect convective drying. The intensity of moisture evaporation from the body surface is determined by the value of the heat transfer coefficient in the Biot number and the regime parameters of the process. It has been established that the processes of drying materials are low-intensity processes. Based on the elements of the theory of thermal regular regime, the rate of heating of a wet body and the rate of decrease in moisture content are determined. The problem of constructing drying curves without conducting experiments to determine the duration of drying of thermal insulation materials based on approximate equations is considered; this problem is of interest for the practice of drying. The constructed drying curves do not coincide with the actual curve with an error of 4–5 %.