Energy Saving Equipment for Crushed Materials Drying

Wooden and agricultural waste which has the high humidity having negative impact on the quality of the ready-made products is often used as a filler in the composite materials production. At the same time, a decrease in moist indicators of vegetable raw materials with the known methods is a rather energy-intensive action. In this regard, the development of the energy saving drying technologies and equipment is one of the most important problems of modem production. The convective vacuum drying installation of dish-shaped type based on the technology of convective drying at the stationary lowered pressure is presented in this article. The feature of this drying installation is the existence of the multistage punched plates, the diameter of perforation of which varies depending on device height starting from 15 mm in the top part of the camera down to 2 mm in the lower part. That allows drying up different fractions of the crushed material evenly. During experiments it has been revealed that the greatest efficiency of process is reached with a pressure of 50-60 kPa, the temperature of the drying agent of 84-87 degrees C and the speed of its movement of 6-7 m/s. Besides, this technology of drying allows for the lower power costs associated with the process due to the reduction of heat losses due to the absence of high temperature regimes and decreased duration of the process. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.