Drying 2004 Proceedings of the 14th International Drying Symposium (IDS 2004) So Paulo, Brazil, 22-25 August 2004,

, vol. B, pp. 775-781

AIRFLOW PATTERNS IN A COUNTER-CURRENT SPRAY DRYING TOWER SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT

Andrew E. Bayly, Paul Jukes, Michael Groombridge and Clare McNally Procter & Gamble, Newcastle Technical Centre, Whitley Rd., Longbenton, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE12 9TS, United Kingdom. E-mail: bayly.ae@pg.com
Keywords: spray drying, airflow patterns, swirl, counter-current, CFD ABSTRACT Airflow profiles in a counter-current spray drying tower with a swirling airflow were measured using an LDV (Laser Doppler Velocimeter) system at a series of axial locations. The experiments were done in cold conditions without any spray present. A commercial computational fluid dynamic code (FLUENT) was used to develop a model of the experimental conditions. Experimental and simulated airflow profiles are compared and a good agreement is observed. INTRODUCTION During spray drying the air and particles can be contacted in a counter-current or co-current fashion. Co-current towers are typically chosen for heat sensitive products as the particle temperature remains lower than in the counter-current case. However for drying more robust materials the counter-current process offers higher thermal efficiency and can lead to different, in some cases desirable, product characteristics. The counter-current dryer was chosen by the synthetic detergent industry as its process of choice 50 or more years ago and it remains by far the most economically important process for the manufacture of granular detergent products around the globe. Although basic research into spray drying has been undeservingly limited in the past (Masters, 2002), several groups have studied airflow patterns in spray dryers. A review of this work can be found in Southwell & Langrish (2000). The vast majority of this work has been focused on co-current towers, where the importance of the airflow pattern on dryer operation and product properties has been highlighted. This is no less the case for counter-current dryers yet to date quantitative measurements of airflow profiles have not been reported. This has meant that recent work modelling the airflow patterns in

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counter-current dryers (Harvie et al., 2001), whilst providing useful insights into the flow, has been restricted by the lack of experimental data for validation. The work reported here seeks to address this issue by making accurate experimental measurements of air flow profiles within a small scale, counter-current tower in cold, no spray, conditions. A single base case is presented alongside a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of the same situation. GEOMETRY The scaled down counter-current tower studied by Sharma (1990) was used for this investigation. The geometry is shown in Figure 1. The cylindrical section of the tower is 1.22 m wide and around 5 m high. The tower is constructed from a transparent PVC material. In the set-up studied the air enters through eight equally spaced cylindrical air inlets set around the tower hip. These directable air inlet nozzles were fixed in a position for the experiments. The axis of the cylinder was set 25 below the horizontal and 25 to the tower radius in the horizontal plane, thus imparting a significant swirl to the flow in the tower. For these experiments the nozzle exits were covered with a perforated mesh. This mesh both ensured an equal distribution of air through each of the inlets and helped straighten the flow into the tower. The inlet nozzle diameter was 0.102 m i.d. and the circular mesh holes were 2 mm diameter, the overall open area was 2.41x10-3 m3 per inlet. Air can also enter the tower through an inlet at the base which is 0.05 m diameter. The outlet, at the top of the tower, is 0.68 m diameter.

0.68m

1.21m 2.73m 5.28m

0.36m

1.71m

0.17m Perforated plate 1.67m 0.07m b) Schematic of one of the eight inlets

0.05m a) tower dimensions Figure 1 Tower Geometry

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EXPERIMENTAL METHODS Fans supplied air to the tower at a total flowrate of 3814 m3/hr through the 8 main inlets and a flowrate of 239 m3/hr through the inlet at the base of the tower (known as the leakage airflow). The air temperature was approximately 20 C. Tangential and axial velocity profiles were measured at a series of heights using a Laser Doppler Anemometer (Flowlite, Dantec Ltd.). Care was taken at each position to check alignment and measurement position and errors in this are estimated to be less than +/- 3 mm. Each measurement was taken over a period between 30 s and 120 s. The measurement was stopped if 10,000 velocity samples were recorded. The flow was seeded using smoke injected into the inlet at the base of the tower. The heights where the measurements were taken are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Measurement Position Locations Position Distance from base (m) Diameter of tower (m) 1 0.71 0.76 2 1.45 1.51 3 1.73 1.71 4 2.00 1.49 5 2.39 1.21 6 2.90 1.21 7 3.58 1.21 8 4.77 1.21

The repeatability of the velocity experiments was checked and found to be excellent for the tangential profiles. For the axial profiles some small differences were seen between repeats on different days, particularly in the region close to the tower base, position 1. This is due to some variability in the leakage airflow rate and direction, further up the tower these differences were reduced, and apart form the central region of the tower, where leakage flow has an effect, the velocities matched to within 0.2 m/s. The symmetry of the profiles was also checked by measuring profiles along horizontal axes 90 apart. At position 6 the profiles were not significantly different; however at position 1, some significant asymmetry was noted in the tangential and axial profiles. Possible reasons for this are discussed below. CFD MODEL The airflows were simulated using the commercially available Fluent 6.0 code available from Fluent Inc.. The grid used to represent the geometry was composed mainly of hex cells and had of the order of 500,000 cells with higher densities in the areas with the highest velocity gradients, for example at the centre of the tower and at the walls. A Reynolds Stress Model was chosen to model the turbulence due to the highly swirling nature of the flow. A SIMPLEC solution method was used for the pressure-velocity coupling and 2nd order differencing for momentum terms. Initially a steady-state simulation was performed. In this case the mass flow residuals did not reduce to as low a level as typically aimed for. If this flow solution was then used to initialize an unsteady simulation the residuals could be reduced further. However, the difference in the velocity profiles between the unsteady and steady simulations was not large. The magnitude of the profiles remained almost identical; though a movement of the central vortex core could be seen in the unsteady case. In order to model the inlet geometry the perforated plate was modelled as an orifice plate with an open area of identical size to the total open area on the perforated plate. This therefore gives the same inlet velocity and consequently angular momentum as the experimental case which is important in order to generate the same tangential velocity profiles. The airflow profile at the inlets and the base of the tower were modelled as uniform with constant velocity inlets.

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AIRFLOWS Experimentally measured and simulated airflow profiles are shown in Figure 2. The simulated profiles are instantaneous profiles taken from the unsteady simulation and demonstrate some of the nonuniformity that this leads to. Overall one sees good agreement between the magnitude and shapes of the tangential and axial velocity profiles. The flow patterns that these profiles reveal are the same as those reported by Sharma (1990) and Harvie et al. (2001), however they provide also provide a quantitative comparison. The profiles in the different areas of the tower are considered below: Inlet area At around the inlet level, positions 3 and 4, there is good agreement, see Figure 2, between the overall shape and magnitude of the axial and tangential velocity profiles, and the expected forced vortex flow pattern is seen. The exact details, maximum and minima, are not matched for two reasons. Firstly, the profile is dependent on the circumferential position of the profiles which are not identical, and secondly due to the approximate modelling of the inlet profile. Base of tower The airflow in the base of the tower is asymmetric due to non-uniformity in the jet of leakage air entering the tower. This jet is also unsteady and when visualized using ribbons is seen to flap with no clear periodicity, however it remains mainly on one side of the tower as indicated by the quantitative measurements. The precession of the vortex core in the tower could be responsible for this as well as natural unsteadiness and asymmetry in the leakage airflow which was not straightened or made uniform. Interestingly the tangential profile remains quite symmetric in both the simulated and the measured cases where the axial profile is significantly asymmetric in both cases. The asymmetry in the simulated profile emphasizes the unsteady nature of this region of the tower. Tower cylindrical section and exit In the tower cylindrical section, the tangential profile changes from a forced vortex shape to Rankine type vortex shape, the peak tangential velocity moving into the centre of the tower slightly as this happens. The model predicts the overall shape of the tangential profile well though it flattens the profile at the centre of the tower, where the measured velocity gradient of the profile is steep. This is perhaps due to either the leakage air inlet boundary condition being uniform with no swirl or perhaps the exit boundary condition. This Rankine vortex shape differs from the simulations of Harvie et al. (2001) which predict a forced vortex within this section of the tower (with the 25, 25 inlet set-up as used here). Whilst the overall flow rates in Harvie et al.s simulation are not identical to those used here, it is thought that the profile shapes should not change significantly with airflow rate. The most likely reason therefore for the forced vortex profiles is the use of the model, as these profile shapes have been noted previously by the authors when using this turbulence model to simulates these flows. The axial profile is again well predicted by the model and the same features, which are governed by the swirl profile, are seen. The axial profile starts with maxima at the walls and at the centre, with a slight down flow at the minima between these. The wall maxima weaken further up the tower and a minimum forms in the central peak towards the exit of the tower as the flow is constrained by the exit geometry. This is more clearly defined by the simulation, again probably due to the exit boundary condition.

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Position 8 (4.77m)

Position 8 (4.77m) Z velocity (m/s)

15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

Y velocity (m/s)

3 2 1 0 -1 -0.5 -1 -2 0 0.5 1

CFD LDA

CFD LDA

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Position 7 (3.54m)
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 0 -1 -1.5 -2

Position 7 (3.58m) Z velocity (m/s)

15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

Y velocity (m/s)

CFD
0.5 1

-1

-0.5

LDA

CFD

Distance (m) Position 6 (2.9m) Y velocity (m/s)

Distance (m)

Position 6 (2.9m) Z velocity (m/s)

15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

3 2 1 0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 -1 -2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

CFD LDA

CFD LDA

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Position 5 (2.39m) Y velocity (m/s) Z velocity (m/s)

6 4 2 0 -1 -0.5 -2 -4 0 0.5 1

Position 5 (2.39m)
15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

CFD LDA

CFD

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

a) Axial Velocity Profiles

b) Tangential Velocity Profiles

Figure 2 Measured and simulated tangential and axial velocity profiles

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Position 4 (2m) Y velocity (m/s) Z velocity (m/s)

10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 -25 0.5 1

Position 4 (2m)
30 20 10 0 -1 -0.5 -10 0 -20 -30 0.5 1

CFD LDA

CFD LDA

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Position 3 (1.73m)
8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 -4 -6 -8

Position 3 (1.73m) Z velocity (m/s)

20 15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

Y velocity (m/s)

-1

-0.5

0.5

CFD

CFD

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Position 2 (1.45m) Y velocity (m/s) Z velocity (m/s)

4 2 0 -1 -0.5 -2 0 -4 -6 -8 -10 0.5 1

Position 2 (1.45m)
15 10 5 0 -1 -0.5 -5 0 -10 -15 0.5 1

CFD LDA

CFD LDA

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

Position 1 (0.71m) Y velocity (m/s) Z velocity (m/s)

4 3 2 1 0 -0.4 -0.2 -1 0 -2 0.2 0.4

Position 1 (0.71m)
15 10 5 0 -0.4 -0.2 -5 0 -10 -15 0.2 0.4

CFD LDA

CFD LDA

Distance (m)

Distance (m)

a) Axial Velocity Profiles

b) Tangential Velocity Profiles

Figure 2 Measured and simulated tangential and axial velocity profiles - continued

CONCLUSIONS The airflow profiles within a scaled down, swirling, counter-current spray drying tower have been accurately measured and provide a quantitative resource for comparison with simulations. A CFD model, using a Reynolds Stress turbulence model, has been developed for the base case and shows good agreement with the experimental measurements. This model can therefore be reapplied to full-scale situations and acts as a basis for simulating the two-phase flows in spray drying towers.

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LITERATURE Harvie, D.J.E., Langrish, T.A.G. and Fletcher, D.F. (2001), Numerical simulations of gas-flow patterns within a tall-form spray dryer, Trans IChemE, Vol. 79, Part A, pp. 235-248 Masters, K. (2002), Spray Drying in Practice, SprayDryConsult International ApS, Charlottenlund, Denmark Sharma, S. (1990), Spray dryer simulation and air flow pattern studies, Ph.D. Thesis, The University of Aston, Birmingham, United Kingdom Southwell, D.B. and Langrish, T.A.G. (2000), Observations of flow patterns in a spray dryer, Drying Technology, Vol. 18., no. 3, pp. 661-685

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