Pneumatic drying of solid particle: experimental and model comparison

Manuscript id: EHT 2006-049

Author response of the reviewer’s comments

Question: Title is not adequate. Title should reflect that drying of fluidized particles is the
subject of paper.
Answer: Thank you for the correction and suggestion from reviewer. In the revised manuscript,
we modified the title of our manuscript into: pneumatic drying of solid particle: experimental
and model comparison. This new title is more proper for the content of the manuscript (drying
phenomena on solid particle) following reviewer’s suggestion.

Question: Expression used for FB should be given explicitly. Considering the buoyancy forces
as a significant contribution sounds very odd for big particles (on the order of 200 μm and
more) of density at least 1000 times greater than the surrounding gas. Hence this part of the
paper should be clarified.
Answer: Thank you for the question. Here, we will try to explain clearly about the problem of
buoyancy force and how to solve the Eq. 1. This question has appeared many times on
reviewer’s comment and question. We also added this explanation and made some correction
which caused by misunderstanding of the figure (especially Fig. 3) in the revised manuscript.
Following Eq. 1, we identified 3 mechanical forces work on single solid particle, which are
weight force (FW), buoyancy force (FB), and drag force (FD). We calculated FW and FD using the
well-established equations which already existed and written down in some references or
handbooks. However, we have a difficulty to calculate FB since conventional equation of FB
requires exact volumetric solid particle. As the shape of the particle and also the size are varied,
we can not solve the FB using the conventional equation. The way that we use is, we find the
value of FB by solving Eq. 1 at particle acceleration equal to zero (0). The simplest way is by set
the minimum velocity of gas which makes the particle fluidized into a fixed-stationary point.
Figure 2b shows the distribution of forces from the gas velocity of 0.1 m/s (which the particle
was not fluidized yet) until it reached minimum particle fluidized velocity (u mf) of around 0.41
m/s. So, figure 2b is not the picture of fluidized region of the particle. Only at umf = 0.4 m/s, the
particle was fluidized. At this point, we can calculate FB which the value is FW - FD. In the
previous manuscript, this value was shown in the grey area and it was not appear clearly (we
found some problems when it was printed). In order to avoid any ambiguous meaning as
mention by reviewer, we changed the way of presenting the result (in Fig. 3b) in the revised
manuscript. And next, the trend of umf as a function of particle diameter was shown in Fig. 3c.
Based on this explanation, at fluidized particle case, the buoyancy force (FB) is smaller than
drag force (FD). It is written in the manuscript that at the dryer gas flow rate of 1 m/s, the drag
force contributes more than 80% of the total forces to make the particle flows upward. The
contribution for flowing the particle is less in this case but at e.g. 0.1 m/s when the FB has big
contribution to maintain the particle from going down. Again, in order to avoid the ambiguous,
we delete the last sentence which is also not necessary to be explained. So, in this case, the
phenomena are correct and also match with what reviewer says. It has been written in the
previous manuscript that FD gives the dominant factor on the maintaining the particle fluidized
in the reactor.

Question: The local gas velocity is not computed. The flow is probably turbulent. Thus the
computation of residence time is quite simplified. The average gas velocity probably varies
along the dryer, etc. The fluid mechanics part of the problem is therefore overly simplified. This
may explain in part the discrepancies with experiments. The authors should comment on these
points in the paper.
Answer: Thank you for reviewer’s comment. In this experiment, the flow rate of the gas was
not calculated and the flow rate of gas or solid particle is much higher than the Reynold number
(NR) of the minimum turbulence (laminar flow). The gas flow is turbulence and we neglect the
variation of the local gas velocity along the tube in radial direction.

Question: The method used for solving Eq.(1) must be given

Answer: Thank you for the question. It has been answered in the previous explanation.

Question: Nomenclature is not complete, for example what does ΔTLMTD represent in Eq.(13) ?
kf in Eq.(14), etc
Answer: Thank you for the correction. In the previous manuscript, we write ΔT LMTD stands for
the temperature difference based on logarithmic mean temperature difference. It is equal to ΔTM
which was already written in the nomenclature. In the revised manuscript, we change ΔT LMTD
with ΔTM. We also added some coefficient which was missing in the previous manuscript.
Thank you for the correction.

Question: Analysis of forces (Figure 3b) is not convincing if one does not accept the buoyancy
forces as a significant contribution.
Answer: Thank for the question. We corrected the Fig. 3b in the revised manuscript and please
refer to the previous explanation related with the contribution of buoyancy force to the upward
forces.
Question: Fig3c vertical axis: should be umf and not ug
Answer: We put ug at the vertical axis of Fig. 3c because ug (superficial gas flow rate) is more
general rather than using umf. It was also written down clearly that ug is the minimum gas flow
rate (umf) in the figure description. However, in order to avoid ambiguous and follow the
reviewer suggestion, we change ug into umf. Thank you very much.

Question: How is the particle temperature measured (p.9 right above Eq.(15)
Answer: In the case of particle temperature measurement, we use a portable radiation
pyrometer. At the bottom of the cyclone, we put a chamber to collect the sample and we install
non-contact pyrometer which will measure the temperature of the particle.

Question: The English needs serious improvements.

Answer: Thank you for reviewer comment related to the linguistic problem. In the revised
manuscript, we checked carefully all of sentences written in the paper.

Question: There are many typos.

Answer: Again, thank you for giving us correction to the manuscript.

Thank you for the comments, suggestion, and questions from reviewer and editor. We are very
welcomed for other questions or suggestion to make this manuscript better.