Mohd Faizal Mohideen Batcha

Thin Layer Modeling of Grated Coconut Drying

With the increasing demand for new and energy efficient drying methods of agricultural products, various techniques were deviced by researchers around the world. This techniques usually developed in laboratory scale prior to scale-up for actual industrial application. During this stage, modeling usually involved to aid scaling up process. This paper presents the modeling of drying kinetics of grated coconut using three semi emperical thin layer model. These models were Logarithmic, Modified Handerson and Pabis, and Verma et al models. Moisture ratio predicted by these models were compared against experimental drying carried out at four temperatures: 50°C, 60°C, 70°C and 80°C. The performance of these models were analyzed statistically using non-linear regression using LabFit software. The statistical parameters analyzed were coefficient of determination (R2), reduced Chi-square (X2), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Residuals. Higher R2 with lower X2, RMSE and Residuals implies good predictability of the models. From the analysis, it was found that Logarithmic model yields the best predictive capability of grated coconut drying kinetics with R2 = 0.9996387, X2 =0.505535x10-3, RMSE = 0.00623597 and Residuals = 0.0703607.

Effect of Relative Humidity on Drying Kinetics of Agricultural Products

The demand for food has been ever increasing in proportion with the growing human population. This includes agricultural products including fruits. Hence, food preservation for extended usage through drying is gaining importance. This study reports the drying behavior of several agricultural products, namely sweet potato, carrot, ginger, turmeric, passion fruit and its rind. Focus has been given to the effect of relative humidity on drying for these products at room temperature. Experiments were carried out at 27°C by varying relative humidity at 40%, 60% and 80%. It was found that the relative humidity has a strong effect on drying, with lower relative humidity providing higher drying rates. In humid surrounding like Malaysia which has an average humidity more than 70%, controlling humidity of drying air may result in an energy efficient process in comparison to raising the drying air temperature

EFFECT OF PLENUM CHAMBER DEPTH IN A SWIRLING FLUIDIZED BED

This paper presents the numerical investigation via Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) to study the effect of plenum chamber depth on air flow a distribution in a swirling fluidized bed (SFB). A total of 9 simulations were conducted for 3 plenum chamber depths of 175 mm, 350 mm and 525 mm (below the distributor) for 3 different inlets: single, double and triple inlets. Air flow distribution was analyzed based on the tangential velocity distribution ad pressure drop at the distributor outlet. Statistical parameters used in characterizing the air flow distribution were standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis together with system pressure drop. An optimum plenum chamber depth has low statistical values, implying a uniform velocity distribution inside the bed while low pressure drops are necessary to reduce energy loss in the system. The findings yield that plenum chamber with 175 mm depth with via triple inlets suffices both criteria of high uniformity and low pressure drops.

Modeling of Layering Ceramic Shell Mould

This paper presents the modeling the drying process of shell mould layering process for the ceramic shell mould fabrication process. As this process involves the repeated drying of the different wetted/saturated layers, therefore modeling of this phenomena involve a sequent approach to tackle the whole development of shell mould layering process. In this work an Ab-Initia approach was selected as the best simulation technique to map the drying mechanism. Saturation or moisture content was selected as the best parameter that will represent the drying of layering process. Using FEM with quadrilateral shape mapping of several interested points were selected to predict the moisture/saturation movement during the drying of shell layering stages. Standard drying time with 2 hours and early drying time were chosen to measure the moisture movement as layer added to the previous dried coated shell or layers. This complex mechanism of drying and penetration layering shell were then numerically solve with fully implicit backward time stepping scheme. Hopefully, this model and can be used to measure the complex movement of the main parameter i.e saturation/temperature in the drying process of multilayer system which is sometimes impossible directly measured under experimental technique

Emission studies from combustion of empty fruit bunch pellets in a fluidized bed combustor

Malaysia is producing a very large amount of biomass annually from milling activities of oil palm. This biomass is currently being used efficiently in many ways including as fuel for boilers together with fossil fuels. This paper reports the emission characteristics from biomass combustion in a swirling fluidized bed combustor (SFBC). Pelletized empty fruit bunch (PEFB), one of largest biomass produced from oil palm industries were used as fuel in the present study. Combustion experiments were conducted with several quantitiesof excess air: 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% for a constant fuel feedrate of 30kg/hr. The effect of excess air was investigated for three major emissions gaseous namely CO, CO2 and NOx. Fly ash produced from the combustion was also analysed to find the contents of unburnt carbon and other impurities. From the results, it was found that the emission of CO decreased from 64 ppm to 40 ppm while the amount of CO2 increased slightly with the increasing of excess air from 20% to 80%. The NOx emission also increased from 290 ppm to 350 ppm because of N2 in the EA reacts with O2 due to high combustion temperature. The combustion efficiencies of about 99% obtained in the present study, showing the prospects of using SFBC in commercial scale.

Hydrodynamics study on drying of pepper in swirling fluidized bed dryer (SFBD)

Malaysia is one of the pepper producer with exports quantity reaching more than 90000 tonnes between 2010 until 2016. Drying of pepper is mandatory before their export and at present, pepper was dried by sun drying to reduce cost. This conventional drying method was time consuming and may take four days during rainy season, which retards the production of pepper. This paper proposes the swirling fluidized bed drying (SFBD) method, which was known to have high mixing ability and improved solid-gas contact to shorten the drying time of products. A lab scale SFBD system was constructed to carry out this study. Hydrodynamic study was conducted for three beds loadings of 1.0 kg, 1.4 kg at a drying temperature of 90°C. The SFBD has shown excellent potential to dry the pepper with a relatively short drying time compared to the conventional method. Batch drying for the bed loads studied only took 3 hours of drying time only. It was found that bed higher bed loading of wet pepper requires longer drying time due to higher amount of moisture content in the bed. Four distinct regimes of operation were found during drying in the SFBD and these regimes offer flexibility of operation. The total bed pressure drop was relatively low during drying.

Flow characteristics of 3-D turning diffuser using particle image velocimetry

It is often necessary in fluid flow systems to simultaneously decelerate and turn the flow. This can be achieved by employing turning diffusers in the fluid flow systems. The flow through a turning diffuser is complex, apparently due to the expansion and inflexion introduced along the direction of flow. The flow characteristics of 3-D turning diffuser by means of varying inflow Reynolds number are presently investigated. The flow characteristics within the outlet cross-section and longitudinal section were examined respectively by the 3-D stereoscopic PIV and 2-D PIV. The flow uniformity is affected with the increase of inflow Reynolds number due to the dispersion of the core flow throughout the outlet cross-section. It becomes even worse with the presence of secondary flow, 22% to 27% of the mean outlet velocity. The flow separation takes place within the inner wall region at the point very close to the outlet edge and the secondary flow vortex occurs dominantly within half part of the outlet cross-section.

Cycle time improvement for plastic injection moulding process by sub groove modification in conformal cooling channel

Mould designers have been struggling for the improvement of the cooling system performance, despite the fact that the cooling system complexity is physically limited by the fabrication capability of the conventional tooling methods. However, the growth of Solid Free Form Technology (SFF) allow the mould designer to develop more than just a regular conformal cooling channel. Numerous researchers demonstrate that conformal cooling channel was tremendously given significant result in the improvement of productivity and quality in the plastic injection moulding process. This paper presents the research work that applies the passive enhancement method in square shape cooling channel to enhance the efficiency of cooling performance by adding the sub groove to the cooling channel itself. Previous design that uses square shape cooling channel was improved by adding various numbers of sub groove to meet the best sub groove design that able reduced the cooling time. The effect of sub groove design on cooling time was investigated by Autodesk Modlflow Insight software. The simulation results showed that the various sub groove designs give different values to ejection time. The Design 7 showed the lowest value of ejection time with 24.3% increment. The addition of sub groove significantly increased a coolant velocity and a rate of heat transfer from molten plastic to coolant.Mould designers have been struggling for the improvement of the cooling system performance, despite the fact that the cooling system complexity is physically limited by the fabrication capability of the conventional tooling methods. However, the growth of Solid Free Form Technology (SFF) allow the mould designer to develop more than just a regular conformal cooling channel. Numerous researchers demonstrate that conformal cooling channel was tremendously given significant result in the improvement of productivity and quality in the plastic injection moulding process. This paper presents the research work that applies the passive enhancement method in square shape cooling channel to enhance the efficiency of cooling performance by adding the sub groove to the cooling channel itself. Previous design that uses square shape cooling channel was improved by adding various numbers of sub groove to meet the best sub groove design that able reduced the cooling time. The effect of sub groove design on cooling time w...

Feasibility study on pliant media drying using fluidized bed dryer

The usage of pliant media for blasting in surface preparation has gained substantial interest in various industries, particularly oil and gas. Being a clean technology, this relatively new method of surface preparation has become an alternative to conventional abrasive blasting technique which lowers fugitive emissions from blasting process and hence lowering risk to workers in the industry. Despite proven to be effective and cost efficient, the usage of pliant media in tropical climate poses a new challenge due to the torrential rain in the monsoon season. During rainy and wet conditions, the pliant media was literally soaked and the recovery rate of the pliant media for a continuous blasting becomes retarded. A viable technique for drying of this pliant media has then become imperative. The present study proposes to dry water laden pliant media in a Swirling Fluidized Bed Dryer (SFBD). In this preliminary study, three bed loadings of 1.7, 2.0 and 2.3 kg of pliant media was dried in the SfBd at 80°C, 90°C and 100°C. The experimental works revealed that the SFBD has shown excellent potential to dry the pliant media with a relatively short drying time. The behaviour of moisture ratio and drying rate against time are discussed. The findings conclude that the SFBD is a feasible technique for wet pliant media drying and can be extended for continuous processing system.

Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Flow around Tube Bank with Integral Wake Splitter

This paper reports the effects of a longitudinal plate attached at the backward stagnation point of a bank of tubes on the local static pressure distribution. The longitudinal plate is termed as an integral wake splitter. Investigations on hydrodynamic characteristics of tube banks with integral wake splitter were carried out in cross flow of air in a rectangular duct at a Reynolds number of 15950. The integral wake splitter length-to-tube-diameter ratios studied were 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. The tube bank consisting of 12 rows and 3 tubes per row in equilateral triangular arrangement with a transverse pitch to diameter ratio, a = 2. The results obtained were compared to the experimental data of Seri et al. (2014). It is observed that the addition of the integral wake splitter reduces the overall pressure drop.