KINETICS OF THE CLAY ROOFING TILE CONVECTION DRYING

Kinetics of the convection drying process of flat tile has been invest igated experimentally in an industrial tunnel dryer. Several velocitie s of wet tile movement through the dryer were tested to obtain maximum allowable drying rate curve. As there are various models to describe the kinetics of convection drying, finding a model that would fairly w ell approximate the kinetics of the whole drying process was part of t he research. Especially the polynomial and exponential models were tes ted. It was found that exponential model of the type: B(t) = (a-B(e)) . EXP(-bt2) + B(e), (-dB(t)/dt) = 2bt(B(t)-B(e)) significantly correla tes the kinetics of the whole tile drying process. Applying the maximu m allowable drying rate curve obtained for flat tile in the first peri od of drying, a grapho-analytic model for the optimal conducting of th e process has been developed.