Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

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Numerical simulation of heat and mass transfer in pneumatic conveying dryer

Samy M. El-Behery a,, W.A. El-Askary a, Mofreh H. Hamed b,c, K.A. Ibrahim a
a

Faculty of Engineering, Menouya University, Shebin El-kom, Egypt

Faculty of Engineering, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, Egypt
c
Faculty of Engineering, Islamic University in Madina, Madina, Saudi Arabia
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 29 December 2011
Received in revised form 30 June 2012
Accepted 11 August 2012
Available online 20 August 2012
Keywords:
Heat and mass transfer
Pneumatic dryer
Two-phase
Numerical simulation

a b s t r a c t
Two-dimensional EulerianLagrangian model is presented for heat and mass transfer in pneumatic conveying dryer. The model takes into account the particleparticle and particlewall collisions, lift forces,
particle rotation, turbulence modulation and turbulence dispersion (i.e., four-way coupling). The drying
simulation is based on a two-stage drying model. Different correlations for heat transfer coefcient are
tested and assessed in terms of their accuracy. The model is validated against the available experimental
data and good agreement is obtained. The model predictions are compared to other models from literature and it produces better results than existing models. It is also found that the turbulence dispersion
has greater effect on the model predictions than particleparticle collision. However, neglecting either
particleparticle collision or turbulence dispersion results in a lower heat transfer and drying rates.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Drying is an essential process in many industrial applications
such as food, agricultural, ceramic, polymers and plastic, pulp
and paper, pharmaceutical and wood processing industries. Drying
equipments are classied according to the heat transfer mechanism to convective and conductive and according to the handling
characteristics to batch and continuous operation [1]. Pneumatic
conveying dryers which can be classied as convective and continuous drying equipment is one of the most widely used equipment.
Pneumatic dryers are characterized by simultaneous momentum,
heat and mass transfer processes between the dispersed material
and the drying agent. The large surface area for heat and mass
transfer results in higher drying rate and higher drying capacity.
In these types of dryers the contact time between the drying medium and particulate material is relatively short (usually few seconds only). Therefore, these dryers are suitable for heat-sensitive
materials and also for removing external moisture. This allows
higher inlet temperatures to be used than in many other dryers
without unduly heating the product [1]. Pneumatic dryers are simple in construction and have low capital cost. Vertical type of construction, which facilitates installation in exiting buildings, is an
advantage of pneumatic dryer systems [2]. Among other dryers,
the pneumatic dryer shows the highest removal rate of the liquid
from the solid particle [3]. Drying calculations are based on the
knowledge of air and material properties. The successful
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: s_elbehery@yahoo.com (S.M. El-Behery).
0045-7930/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compuid.2012.08.006

simulation of a pneumatic dryer requires knowledge of the solids

residence time (and hence the particle motion within the dryer),
the heat transfer coefcient and mass transfer process inside and
outside the solid. By employing a volumetric heat transfer concept,
as used for rotary dryers, simple estimation procedures have been
suggested by Williams-Gardner [4] and Moyers and Baldwin [5].
These procedures assumed that the particles are traveling at a steady velocity close to the gas velocity. Baeyens et al. [1] pointed out
that these methods can over-predict the required dryer length by
200400%.
To model the acceleration zone near the feed point a stepwise
procedure was suggested by many researchers such, Thorpe et al.
[6], Kemp et al. [7], Radford [8] and Kemp and Oakley [9]. Although
these procedures are considerable improvement on the steadystate, Kemp et al. [10] reported that they still give errors of
50100% in the tube length prediction. Further development in
the dryer simulations is the application of one-dimensional model
based on the two-uid theory. Levy and Borde [11], Pelegrina and
Crapiste [12] and El-Behery et al. [13] simulated the pneumatic
dryer using the one-dimensional steady-state model. However, this
model does not provide any information about the cross section distribution of ow properties, which may be an important aspect to be
considered in drying processes [14]. To predict the cross-sectional
distribution of ow properties Skuratovsky et al. [15,16] developed
a two-dimensional steady-state model based on the two-uid theory. The predictions of the two-dimensional model did not present
any signicant difference as compared to those provided by Levy
and Borde [11]. Recently, the computational uid dynamics (CFD)
code, Fluent, was used to perform 3-D simulation of pneumatic

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

Nomenclature
Symbols
Cp
Cl
D
Dv
dp
FD
FLR
FSL
Hfg
h
hh
hm
Ip
M
o
m
m
Nu
Pr
Prt
Rt
r
T
To
t

specic heat (J/kg K)

constant in turbulence model ()
pipe diameter (m)
diffusion coefcient (m2/s)
particle diameter (lm)
drag force (N)
Magnus lift force (N)
shear lift force (N)
latent heat of vaporization (J/kg)
enthalpy (J/kg)
heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
mass transfer coefcient (m/s)
particle moment of inertia (N m)
molecular weight (kg/kmole)
mass ow rate (kg/s)
mole fraction ()
Nusselt number ()
Prandtl number ()
turbulent Prandtl number ()
turbulent Reynolds number ()
radial coordinate (m)
temperature (K)
torque (N m)
time (s)

drying process [1719]. EulerianLagrangian approach was applied

by Mezhericher et al. [17] while EulerianEulerian approach was
used by Jamaleddine and Ray [18,19]. The model of Mezhericher
et al. [17] can not predict correctly either the gas temperature or
particle water content. On the other hand, the predictions of Jamaleddine and Ray [18,19] agree well with the experimental data.
This can be attributed to the limitations of the available Eulerian
Lagrangian model in Fluent. Experimental investigations of the
pneumatic dryer were given also by NamKung and Cho [20] and
Kaensup et al. [21,22].
A critical survey of the earlier work reveals a good amount of
theoretical work on pneumatic conveying dryer. However, the
work devoted to computational uid dynamics including turbulence modeling is very scarce. In addition, the effects of many
important phenomena such as particleparticle collision, particleturbulence interaction, lift forces, particle size distribution
and turbulence modulation are limited. Chagras et al. [23], Boulet and Moissette [24], Mansoori et al. [25] and El-Behery et al.
[26] showed that these parameters have a great effect on the
gassolid heat transfer. Furthermore, experimental work on
pneumatic conveying dryer is limited. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to provide a validated computational model,
including those parameters that previously neglected, that can
be used for pneumatic conveying design and operation
predictions.

X
x
Y

solid water content (kgwater/kgsolid)

axial coordinate (m)
water vapor mass fraction (kgwater/kgair)

Greek symbols
a
gas void fraction ()
b
solids void fraction ()
d
porosity ()
k
thermal conductivity (W/m K)
l
viscosity (kg/m s)
lt
turbulent viscosity (kg/m s)
q
density (kg/m3)
R
universal gas constant (J/kmole K)
sw
shear stress at wall (N/m2)
x
angular velocity (1/s)
Subscripts
Ave
average
cr
critical
da
dry air
g
gas
H2O
water vapor
p
particle
v
vapor

2.1. Model assumptions

1. The ow model is for a 2-D/axisymmetric duct.
2. The particles are spherical in the particle tracking procedure.
3. The particles are rigid during particleparticle and particlewall
collisions.
4. The gas phase is assumed as an ideal gas-mixture of air and
water vapor.
5. Heat and mass transfer occurs between gas phase and individual particles (i.e., heat and mass transfer between particles
themselves is ignored).
The particle-to-particle heat transfer is neglected based on the
nding of Mansoori et al. [27]. They reported that the particle-toparticle heat transfer can result from three main mechanisms,
namely: heat transfer by radiation, heat transfer through the contact point, and heat exchange through the gas lens at the interface
between colliding particles. They reported also that the rst mechanism is only signicant at temperatures higher than 600 C. They
also found in their numerical efforts, using hot and cold particles
streams, that the inter-particles heat transfer does not signicantly
affect the mean gas and particles temperature, and becomes
important only when the rate of change in temperature of hot or
cold particles is important.
2.2. Gas ow modeling

2. Mathematical model
Four-way coupling EulerianLagrangian approach is used in the
present study to predict the heat and mass transfer in gassolid
ow through pneumatic conveying dryer. The gas phase is simulated using Reynolds Averaged NavierStokes Equations. The turbulent viscosity is modeled by the low-Re ke model and the
particle tracking procedure is used for the solid phase. To provide
a reasonable solution for engineering objectives some simplifying
assumptions are taken as follow.

The general form of the elliptic differential equations governing

axisymmetric, turbulent, steady, compressible and non-isothermal
two-phase ow is:





@
@/
1 @
@/

S/  S/p
aqu/  aC/
aqrv /  aC/ r
@x
@x
r @r
@r

where S/ and S/p are source terms of gas and dispersed phases
respectively, while exchange coefcient, C/ is summarized in Table
1 for the dependent variable /.

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

Table 1
Governing equations of the gas phase.
Conservation of

C/

S/

Mass
Axial momentum

1
Ug

0.0

0.0

Radial momentum

Vg

leff

Energy equation

Tg

lg

Turbulent kinetic energy

Dissipation rate

leff
rk
leff
re

Water vapor mass fraction

Y H2 O

Pr

In the low-Re ke model damping functions and the extra source

terms D and E (see Table 1) are used instead of the wall function.
These source terms and damping functions are calculated as given
by Launder and Sharma [28].



f 2 1  0:3 exp R2t

f1 1:0;

D 2l

p!2
@ k
;
@y

E2

llt @U g
q @y

3
2
4

To account for the increase of turbulent Prandtl number near

the wall, the expression given by Kays [29] is used as follows:

1
l
0:5882 0:228 t  0:0441
Prt
lg


lg 
 1  exp 5:165

lt
lg

!2

lt

2.3. Particle phase modeling

The solid phase is simulated using the Lagrangian approach, a
few thousands of computational particles parcels are traced
through the oweld in each coupling iteration. After each given
time step the new position of the parcels and the new transitional
and angular velocities are calculated from the equations of motion
as in [26] through:

!
dxp !
up
dt

Ip

aG  qe  D
a ke C e1 f1 G  C e2 f2 qe aE
0.0

nus lift due to particle rotation and gravity, respectively. Detailed

description of these forces can be found in [26]. The particle
temperature is traced along the particle trajectory by the following
ordinary differential equation:

mp C pp

o
dT p
2
hh pdp T g  T p  md Hfg
dt

10

In order to solve the forgoing equations (i.e. Eqs. (6)(10)); the

instantaneous gas velocity components at the particles location
are needed. The mean velocities are interpolated from neighboring
grid points, while the uctuating components are generated using
the Stochastic Separated Flow model (SSF) given by Shuen et al.
[30].
2.4. Mass transfer model
The mass transfer in the present model is based on the twostage drying process. In the rst stage, the solid surface can be considered to be fully wetted and the resistance to the mass transfer is
located in the gas side. The evaporation rate from individual particle can be expressed as given by Levy and Borde [11] as:
o

The turbulence model constants are, Ce1 = 1.44, Ce2 = 1.92,

Cl = 0.09, rk = 1.0 and re = 1.3.

mp

Prtt

lt
qDv Sc
t

The effective and eddy viscosities are calculated as:

leff l lt ; lt C l fl q

h

i


ap
g
@
2
@
~
 @@x
@x
aleff @U
ar leff @V@xg
1r @r
@x  3 r  V g


h
i
ap
g
@
@
1r @r
 @@r
@x
aleff @U
aleff r @V@rg  23 r  ~
Vg
@r
V
Vg
2aleff r2g 23 alr e r  ~
h 

i
2
1
@
@
 2C pg @x aqg U g U g V 2g 1r @r
r aqg V g U 2g V 2g

leff

md hm pdp



MH2 O pv o MH2 O pv g

RT p
RT g

11

where pvo and pvg are the partial pressures of water vapor at the particle surface and the gas phase.
Mezhericher et al. [17] introduced the following differential
equation to calculate the time change of particle radius during
the constant rate period.
o
dRp
1
md

dt
qw 4pR2p

12

!
!
!
!
dup !
F D F LS F LR F g
dt

!
dxp !
T
dt

!
!
3
!
To pldp 0:5r  U g  x p 

! !
!
where x p is the particle position vector, U g ; u p are the gas and par!
ticle velocity vectors, x p is the particle angular velocity vector, To is
2

the torque acting on the particle, Ip 0:1mp dp is the particle mo! ! !

!
ment of inertia and mp is the particle mass. F D ; F LS ; F LR and F g
are the components of the forces arising from drag, shear lift, Mag-

(a) Constant rate period

(b) Falling rate period

Fig. 1. Two-stage drying model of wet particle.

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

In the present study an analytical expression is developed to

calculate the instantaneous particle diameter as a function of dry
particle diameter do, and the instantaneous solid water content,
X, as follows:

dp do

 Frantz correlation [9].

1=3

qs
X  X cr 1
qw

13

The second drying stage period starts when the particulate

surface becomes no longer wetted and evaporation must occur
from within the pores and dry porous crust starts formation
around the wet core, as shown in Fig. 1. This is assumed to occur
at solid water content, X, less than the critical solid water content,
Xcr. The particle diameter, do will no longer changed during this
stage while the radius of the wet core recedes to the particle center. Heat is conducted from the particle surface through the dry
crust to the interface and water evaporates and diffuses back to
the particle surface. The rate of vapor diffusion from the wet core
to the particle surface decreases as the dry crust thickens increases. This process is called falling rate period. By introducing
the resistance in the dry porous crust given by MaxwellStefan
type diffusion, the mass transfer rate can be calculated as given
by Skuratovsky et al. [15,16] as:
o

md

1
1

4pd Ro Ri

1

M H2 O D v P P  P v i
ln
P  Pv o
RT av e

14

The mass transfer rate from the wet core, Eq. (14), must be equal
to that from particle surface to the gas, Eq. (11). Eliminating the partial pressure of water vapor at the dry crust, pvo from Eq. (14) using
Eq. (11) yields an implicit equation for the evaporation rate:
o

md

1
1
1

4pd Ro Ri

 ln
P

1

M H2 O D v P
RT av e
P  Pv i
o

RT p
MH

h
2O m

d2po

md pv g T pg

15

The heat to the wet core is transferred rst by convection from

the ambient gas and then by conduction through the dry crust.
Assuming quasi-steady state conditions, the temperature of the
wet core can be calculated by:

T g  T p

!1

1
2

hh pdo


Tg  Ti

do  di

2
hpdo 2pdo di ks

!1
16

where Tp, Ti are temperatures of the outer dry crust and the inner
wet core, respectively, and Tave = (Tp + Ti)/2.
In general, during the second drying period, the outer shape of
the particle might be changed due to shrinkage of both outer and
core diameters. However, to simplify the model, it is assumed that
the particle outer diameter remains constant during the second
drying period. Thus, only the change of the wet core diameter, Di
is considered.

dDi
2 o
md

dt
dpD2i

17

2.5. Heat transfer coefcient

The convective heat transfer coefcient, hh, was calculated from
Nusselt number, Nu, which is expressed as a function of Reynolds
number, Rep and Prandtl number, Pr, which are dened as:

Nu

hdp
;
kg

Rep

!
qg dp j !
ug  u p j

lg

Various empirical correlations can be used to calculate the heat

transfer coefcient. The following published correlations have
been tested in the present study:

Pr

l g C pg
kg

0:667
Nu 0:015Re1:6
p Pr

 De Brandt correlation [1,11].

0:667
Nu 0:16Re1:3
p Pr

20

 Debrand correlation [31].

Nu 0:035Re1:15
Pr0:333
p

21

 Baeyens et al. correlation [1].

The correlation was developed for a large scale pneumatic
dryer.

Nu 0:15Rep

22

 Modied RanzMarshall correlation [11].

The correlation was developed for single droplet/wet particle and it
takes into account the resistance of the liquid vapor around the
particle to the heat transfer by Spalding number, B.

Nu

0:333
2 0:6Re0:5
p Pr

1 B0:7

C pH2 O T g  T p
Hfg

23

24

 Modied Weber correlation [7]

An additional term proportional to Re0:8
was added to Ranz
p
Marshall correlation to account for turbulent ow.



0:8
Nu 2 0:5Re0:5
Pr0:333
p 0:06Rep

25

2.6. Mass transfer coefcient

In analogy to the heat transfer coefcient, hh, the mass transfer
coefcient, hm, is calculated from Sherwood number, Sh, which is
equivalent to Nusselt number, Nu. It is often expressed as a function of the particle Reynolds number, Rep, and Schmidt number,
Sc, which is equivalent to Prandtl number, Pr, and they are dened
as:

Sh

hm dp
;
Dv

Sc

lg
qg Dv

26

Eqs. (19)(25) have been tested and used to calculate the mass
transfer coefcient in the present study.
2.7. Coupling between the two phases
The particles occupy the computational cell and reduce the gas
volume fraction. They also exert interaction forces on the surrounding gas phase. Thus, the two phases are coupled through
the gas volume fraction and through the total source/sink term,
S/P that accounts for the momentum, heat and mass exchange between continuous and dispersed phases. The void fractions of dispersed phase, b and gas phase, a are calculated respectively using
trajectory method as depicted in [32] by:

X N k Dt k V k
traj

18

19

V Cell

a1b

27

where Nk is the number of actual particles in the computational particle parcel (k), Vk is the volume of the particle, Vcell is the volume of

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

computational cell and

traj means summing over all trajectory
passing through the computational cell. The source term of dispersed phase in the gas momentum equation is calculated as in
[33] by:

SUp i

1 X

mk N k
V Cell traj
"
! #
Nt
X
q
n1
n

upi k  upi k  g i 1 
Dt L

qp

n1

28

where DtL is the Lagrangian time step used in the solution of Eqs.
(3)(8), and summing over n indicates averaging along particle trajectory (time average).
The energy source term, STS , which represents the convective
heat exchange between the dispersed phase and the continuous
phase as well as the energy transferred to the gas phase by water
vapor, is given by:

STp 

Nt h
i
X
o
1 X
2
Nk 
hh pdp T g  T p  md hH2 O DtL
C pg V Cell traj
n1

29

Smass
S

2.9. Supplementary equations

In order to solve the above set of equations several supplementary equations, denitions and empirical correlations are required.
These will be presented subsequently. It should be noted that both
the gas and solid phases are mixtures and hence their thermodynamic properties are calculated using the mixture theory.
Mole fraction of water vapor in the gas stream.

mH2 O

P
Rg T g

35

R
;
Mg

M g mH2 O M H2 O 1  mH2 O Mda

36

Heat capacity of the gas stream.

The effect of particles on the turbulence of the continuous phase

is known as turbulence modulation. El-Behery et al. [26] compared
the performance of four commonly used turbulence modulation
models and they found that the model of Lain and Sommerfeld
[33] gives the best agreement with experimental data. This model
has the following form and is adopted in the present study:

Cpg Y H2 O C pH2 O 1  Y H2 O Cpda

Skp upi SUp i  U gi SUp i

kg Y H2 O kH2 O 1  Y H2 O kda

31

34

where

Rg
30

Y H2 O
Y H2 O 1  Y H2 O M H2 O =M da

Density of gas stream.

The mole fraction of water vapor is used together with the ideal
gas equation to calculate the density of the gas phase as follows:

qg

where hH2 O is the enthalpy of water vapor at particle temperature.

The mass source term (i.e., the source term in continuity and
water vapor mass fraction equations) is calculated as:
Nt
X
o
1 X

Nk 
md Dt L 
V C traj
n1

assumed to be 0.25 for particleparticle collision and 0.2 for particle

wall-collision.

37

Viscosity of gas stream.

lg mH2 O lH2 O 1  mH2 O lda

38

Thermal conductivity of gas stream.

39

Heat capacity of the dispersed phase.

e

Sp C e3

e
k

Skp

32

where Ce3 is a model constant, its value varies in the literature from
1.1 to 2. Zhang and Reese [34] accounted for the reduction in the gas
turbulence length scale due to the presence of a second phase in Ce3.
Therefore, this model is adopted in the present study:

"

C e3

6b
1:95 1 
pbm

1=3 #
33

Cpp

X
1
Cpw
Cps
1X
1X

40

Density of the dispersed phase.

qp qsa 1 X qs 1  d1 X

41

where qsa is the apparent density of solids.

The thermodynamics properties of water vapor and dry air are
calculated as a function of temperature from formulas given by
Reynolds [37].

where bm = 0.64 is the random close-packing solid volume fraction.

2.10. Boundary conditions
2.8. Particleparticle and particlewall collisions
In the present study the particles are traced one by one and the
colliding partner is generated numerically based on the average solid properties in the cell enclosing the particle. The collision probability is calculated as proposed by Oesterl and Petitjean [35]. If the
collision takes place, the post-collision velocities are calculated
using the hard sphere model described by Crowe et al. [32]. The particle trajectory after impact with the wall is greatly affected by the
wall morphology. As a result of the surface roughness, the particle is
generally hits a local surface slightly inclined to the ow direction
by a small angle. The virtual-wall model developed by Sommerfeld
[36] is adopted in the present study to calculate the roughness contribution angle. The particleparticle and particlewall collision
models used in the present study are presented in details in Ref.
[26]. The particleparticle and particlewall restitution coefcients
are taken to be 0.75 and 0.9, respectively. The friction coefcient is

In the present study, there are four types of boundary conditions. At inlet, the gas velocity, temperature, mass fraction of water
vapor and turbulent kinetic energy and its dissipation rate are
specied. In compressible ow computations, the gas mass ow
rate is specied at inlet instead of the gas velocity. The inlet velocity prole is assumed to be uniform and the turbulent kinetic energy and its dissipation rate are calculated by:
3=2

kin 0:04U 2in ;

ein C3=4
l

kin
0:03D

42

At outlet the gradient of all variables in the ow direction is set

to zero, except the axial gas velocity which is corrected to satisfy
the overall mass balance. At the wall, the no-slip boundary conditions are imposed for the momentum equation, while for the energy equation; adiabatic wall boundary condition is considered.
At the centerline, the symmetric boundary conditions are applied.

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

400

Exp., Ref. [1]

Modified Weber [7]
Baeyens et al. [1]
Modified Ranz-Marshall [11]

Tg (K)

380

Table 3
Coefcient of determination of the tested heat and mass transfer correlations.

Debrand [31]
Frantz [9]

Coefcient of determination, R2

Correlation

De Brandt [1]

Frantz [27]
De Brandt [1,11]
Debrand [20]
Baeyens et al. [1]
Modied RanzMarshall [11]
Modied Weber [17]

360

340

Gas temperature

Solid water content

0.4836
0.8172
0.7237
0.9927a
0.9795
0.9227

0.1268
0.7121
0.4163
0.9866a
0.8186
0.8916

320
a

300

10

15

20

The largest R2.

25

x (m)

(a) Gas temperature

400

0.4

Exp., Ref. [1]

390

Present 2D Num.

0.3

Tg (K)

X (kg water /kg solid )

380

1D Num., Ref. [11]

2D Num., Ref. [15]

370

3D Num., Ref. [18]

360

0.2
350
340

0.1

330
0.0

10

15

20

25

Baeyens et al. [1]

Rocha
[43]

Case I

Case II

1.25
25.0
190  700
PVC
140
1195
980
400
0.26
0.125
12.81

1.25
25.0
190  700
PVC
180
1116
980
399
0.4
0.125
12.9

0.0525
4.0
100  150
Sand
380
2622
799.7
382.4
0.0468
0.0381
0.03947

20

25

1.58

1.85

0.00474

300
0.01

300
0.01

312.9
0.0469

2.11. Solution procedure

Finite volume discretizations using the hybrid scheme for all
variables, expect the density which is interpolated using the rst
order upwind scheme, are applied. The iterative solution based on
the SIMPLE algorithm of Patankar [38] is used for the solution of
the gas phase with an extended technique to compressible ow
according to Karki [39]. The equations of motion of each particle
along with its temperature equation are integrated using fourth

0.25

X (kg water /kg solid )

Table 2
Flow conditions and physical properties of drying test cases.

Solid mass ow rate, ms (kg/s)

Solid inlet temperature, Tp,in (K)
Mass fraction of water vapor at inlet
Y H2 O;in

25

0.30

Fig. 2. Comparisons between present predictions using different correlations and

experimental data of Baeyens et al. [1] (Case I).

20

(a) Gas temperature

(b) Solid water content

Gas mass ow rate, mg (kg/s)

15

x (m)

x (m)

Pipe diameter, D (m)

Pipe length, L (m)
Computational grid (radial  axial)
Particle material
Particle diameter, dp (lm)
Solid density, qs (kg/m3)
Solid specic heat, Cps (J/kg/K)
Inlet gas temperature, Tg,in (K)
Inlet water content of solid, Xin
Critical water content, Xcr

10

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

10

15

x (m)

(b) Solid water content

Fig. 3. Comparisons between present predictions and predictions of Refs. [11,15,18]
with experimental data of Ref. [1] (Case II).

order RungeKutta method. The grid used in the present work is

non uniform in the radial direction. Thus, the grid is very ne near
the pipe wall and gradually expanded to the pipe centerline. The
computational grid is selected based on grid independence study
and the dimensionless wall distance, y+ is less than unity in all
the tested cases. Furthermore, the number of computational parcels
and the time step used in the integration of Eqs. (6)(10) are selected to insure independent results. The FORTRAN code used in
the present study was originally developed by El-Behery et al.
[40,41] to calculate gassolid ow in curved ducts. The code is extended by El-Behery et al. [26] to include four-way coupling. Heat
transfer and the compressibility effects were implemented by ElBehery et al. [42]. In the present study the code is modied to include mass transfer between both phases. The solution procedure
for the uid and particulate phases is as follows:

165

S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

390

322
Exp., Ref. [43]
Present 2D Num.

380

320

1D Num., Ref. [11]

Tp (K)

Tg (K)

2D Num., Ref. [16]

3D Num., Ref. [18]

370

318

316

360
314

350

312
0

x (m)

x (m)

(a) Gas temperature

(b) Solid temperature

0.054

0.05

X (kg water /kg solid )

YH2O (kg water /kg air )

0.04

0.052

0.050

0.03

0.02

0.048
0.01

0.046

0.00
0

x (m)

x (m)

(c) Air water content

(d) Solid water content

Fig. 4. Comparisons between present prediction and predictions of Refs. [11,16,18] with experimental data of Ref. [43].

1. A converged solution of gas phase is calculated without source

term of the dispersed phase and with gas void fraction, a of
unity. The solution is converged when the normalized residuals
are less than 0.001.
2. By numerically integrating the transitional and rotational equation of motion for each parcel, a large number of discrete parcels are traced through the oweld. In the rst iteration, the
particle motion is obtained without particleparticle collision
and information is stored for each cell to calculate the collision
probability in the next iteration.
3. The void fraction for dispersed phase, b and for gas phase, a as
well as the source terms are calculated.
4. The gas oweld is recalculated taking into account the source
terms and void fractions resulting in step 3.
5. Repeat steps 24 until the maximum change in the axial gas
velocity between two successive coupled iterations is less than
0.001 of the mean gas velocity.

by Skuratovsky et al. [15,16], Mezhericher et al. [17] and Jamaleddine and Ray [18], the wall temperature is varied linearly form
325 K at inlet to 320 K at outlet. Other conditions for this test case
are given in Table 2.
For direct comparison with experimental data, mass weighted
average technique is used to obtain the average value of various
solution properties (except temperature), Refs. [15,16], as follows:

2p

RR

2p

qU/r dr
qUr dr
0

R0 R

43

The average temperature of each phase (the mean bulk temperature) can be calculated as given [15,16] as:

2p

RR

qUC p Tr dr
2p 0 qUC p r dr
0

RR

44

3. Results and discussions

The present model was thoroughly validated by El-Behery et al.
[26,42] for hydrodynamics and thermal elds. The results presented herein concern only with heat and mass transfer processes.
Six popular correlations for heat and mass transfer coefcients are
tested in the present study (i.e., Eqs. (19)(25)). Fig. 2 shows a
comparison between present model predictions and experimental
data of Baeyens et al. [1] (Case I) using different correlations for
heat and mass transfer coefcients. Following the suggestion given

Fig. 2 indicates that Debrand, modied Weber and modied

RanzMarshall correlations under-predict the gas temperature
and the solid water content at the dryer outlet. On the other hand,
Frantz and De Brandt correlation over-predict them. Baeyens et al.
[1] correlation gives the best overall performance. For quantitative
assessment of these correlations, the coefcient of determination,
R2 is calculated for each correlation and presented in Table 3. The
coefcient of determination, R2 is a measure of the goodness of a
model and it can be dened as the ratio between residual sum of

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S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

X (kg water /kg solid )

0.4
Present 2D, r = 0.0 m
Present 2D, r = 0.62 m
Exp., Ref. [1]

0.3

3D Ref. [17], r = 0.0 m

3D Ref. [17], r = 0.62 m

0.2

0.1

0.0

10

15

20

25

20

25

x (m)

(a) Solid water content

400

Tg (K)

380

360

340

320

10

15

Furthermore, the present predictions are in close agreement with

the one-dimensional model. The main advantage of 2D and 3D
models is that the cross-sectional distribution of ow parameters
can be obtained.
To assess the accuracy of the present model for the radial variation of ow properties, the present predictions are compared with
the 3D EulerianLagrangian predictions of Mezhericher et al. [17]
using FLUENT CFD code, as shown in Fig. 5. The results are presented for two radial positions namely; pipe center (r = 0.0 m)
and near periphery (r = 0.62 m). The experimental data of Baeyens
et al. [1] are also presented in the same gure for direct comparison.
This gure indicates that gas temperature is lower near the pipe
wall due to the lower wall temperature. This results in low drying
rate and hence higher solid moisture content near the pipe wall.
The gure indicates also that the present results are more realistic
than those of Mezhericher et al. [17] as it compared with experimental data. This may be due to the relatively coarse grid used by
Mezhericher et al. [17]. Another improvement in the present model
over that of Mezhericher et al. [17] is the use of variable turbulent
Prandtl number. This parameter has a great effect on the heat transfer rate through the wall as reported by El-Behery et al. [26].
In order to understand the relative inuence of turbulence dispersion and particleparticle collision, numerical simulation is carried out neglecting either of these parameters. A comparison
between the complete model prediction and the predictions without either turbulence dispersion or particleparticle collision for
Baeyens et al. [1] (Case I) is shown Fig. 6. It can be seen from this
gure that the particleparticle collision is less important for this
case. This can be attributed to the low solid void fraction

x (m)

(b) Gas temperature

Fig. 5. Comparisons between present prediction and predictions of Ref. [17] with
experimental data of Ref. [1] (Case I) at different radial positions.

R2 1  Pi1
n

360

/i;num  /i;exp

i1 /i;exp

Complete model
Without particle-particle collision
Without turbulence dispersion

380

 /exp 2

45

The results presented in Table 3 indicate that the best prediction (the highest R2) is obtained when Baeyens et al. correlation
is applied. In addition, modied RanzMarshall and modied Weber correlations can be applied to the cases involving heat transfer
only. Overall, however, the correlation proposed by Baeyens et al.
[1] is recommended in the present study for the heat and mass
transfer coefcients.
Figs. 3 and 4 present comparisons between present predictions
and experimental data of Baeyens et al. [1] (Case II) and Rocha
[43], respectively. The experimental data of Rocha are reported in
Refs. [11,1418]. The pipe wall temperature for Rocha test case is
falling linearly from 360 K at inlet to 354 K at outlet. Other conditions for these test cases are given in Table 2. The gures also present direct comparison between the present predictions and other
computations from literature. The selected numerical results for
comparison are the one-dimensional prediction of Levy and Borde
[11], two-dimensional numerical results of Skuratovsky et al.
[15,16] and FLUENT three-dimensional predictions of Jamaleddine
and Ray [18]. These models are based on EulerianEulerian approach. The gures show that the present model agrees well with
experimental data for both cases. In addition, the present model
predicts the temperature and water content better than other
two-dimensional and three-dimensional EulerianEulerian models.

340

320

10

15

20

25

20

25

x (m)

(a) Gas temperature

0.4

X (kg water /kg solid )

Pn

Exp., Ref. [1]

Tg (K)

squares and explained sum of squares (i.e., total variation in experimental data), see Cameron and Windmeijer [44]. R2 can be calculated by:

400

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

10

15

x (m)

(b) Solid water content

Fig. 6. Effect of particleparticle collision and turbulence dispersion on the model
predictions.

S.M. El-Behery et al. / Computers & Fluids 68 (2012) 159167

(<1.3  104) in this case. On the other hand, turbulence dispersion

has a great effect on the gas temperature and solid water content.
4. Conclusion
A steady-state two-dimensional four-way coupling Eulerian
Lagrangian model is presented. The model takes into account
momentum, heat and mass exchange between both phases. Several
correlations for heat transfer coefcient are tested in the present
study. The model is validated with experimental data from previous
investigators under different conditions. The present results are
also compared to other published computations. It is found that
the correlation proposed by Baeyens et al. [1] performs better than
other correlations. The comparisons with experimental data
showed that the present model is able to predict heat and mass
transfer in gas ow with a good accuracy. In addition, the present
model performs better than other models available in the literature.
It is found also that neglecting the particleparticle collision or turbulence dispersion results in lower heat transfer and drying rates.
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