Hit 40000

Design of a Drying Process for Washed Recycled Rigid Plastic Material
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author of this paper gives many thanks to Eng. E.Murena for her unwavering support in
form of professional guidance and supervision. The author also extends his heartfelt thanks
to Mega Pak Zimbabwe for opportunity to use their company as a case study of this project.
Special thanks is also given to the NUST Department of Industrial and Manufacturing staff
for providing adequate knowledge to the author throughout his degree program which made
him be in a better position to undertake this project. The author extends thanks to his family
and friends for the moral support given to him and lastly to the Almighty God for the divine
wisdom and spiritual protection throughout the project timeline.
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ABSTRACT
The world, over years has turned toward an environmentally conscious approach towards
business. Issues lie global warming and pollution are now being tackled proactively by most
individuals and firms. Recycling is one of the solutions to the issue of pollution. However, it
has not much economic incentive to do so because of its inefficiency in most cases. The
main goal of the project is to improve the process of recycling by speeding up the process of
drying after washing during the recycling process. In most small scale recycling companies
this is done through sun drying and the author decided to build a machine to dry rigid plastic
material (crate material) during recycling. This eliminates the labour intensive and usually
weather prone process of sun drying. The author employed the technique of spray drying to
dry up solids with free water which is a process never done before as spray drying is
normally done on solids with crystalline water. A mechanical system was developed and its
viability was tested on Aspen V10 simulation software. The author was satisfied with the
results and deemed the project worth developing as it had both economic and environmental
benefits to do so as shown in analysis that were done afterwards.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION...................................................................................................................i
DECLARATION OF COPYRIGHT....................................................................................ii
DEDICATIONS..................................................................................................................iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................iv
ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................xi
LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................xiii
CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION.................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................1
1.2 Problem Statement......................................................................................................1
1.3 Background.................................................................................................................3
1.4 Aim..............................................................................................................................3
1.5 Objectives....................................................................................................................4
1.6 Scope...........................................................................................................................4
1.7 Justification.................................................................................................................4
1.8 Methodology...............................................................................................................5
1.9 Timeline.......................................................................................................................5
1.10 Chapter Summary......................................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................7
2.0 Introduction.................................................................................................................7
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2.1 Spray Drying Principle and Terms..............................................................................7
2.2 Drying Air Characteristics...........................................................................................7
2.3 Terms and definitions................................................................................................10
2.4 Psychrometric Chart..................................................................................................11
2.5 Fall Velocities............................................................................................................13
2.6 Components of a Spray Drying Installation..............................................................13
2.7 Drying chamber.........................................................................................................14
2.8 Hot air supply system................................................................................................17
2.9 Evaporation and product output rate calculations.....................................................28
2.10 Heating of atmospheric air......................................................................................29
2.11 Drying......................................................................................................................29
2.12 Factors That Affect Influence the Flowability of Bulk Solids................................31
2.13 Dehumidifier Selection............................................................................................32
2.14. Sizing Heater and Blower.......................................................................................33
2.15 Shell and Tube Heat exchanger...............................................................................35
CHAPTER 3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................42
3.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................42
3.2 Design Process..........................................................................................................42
3.3 Task Clarification......................................................................................................43
3.4 Conceptual Design....................................................................................................43
3.5 Embodiment of Design..............................................................................................43
3.6 Detailed Design.........................................................................................................44
3.7 Justification of the Pahl and Beitz Design Process...................................................44
3.8 Research Method.......................................................................................................45
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3.9 Research Problem......................................................................................................45
3.10 Research Approach and Design...............................................................................45
3.11 Sources of Data.......................................................................................................46
3.12 Data Collection Techniques....................................................................................46
3.13 Concept Generation Methodology..........................................................................48
3.5 Quality Function Deployment QFD..........................................................................53
3.6 Value Engineering.....................................................................................................54
3.7 Root Cause Analysis.................................................................................................54
3.8 Fishbone Diagram.....................................................................................................55
3.10 Chapter Summary....................................................................................................56
CHAPTER 4-CONCEPT GENERATION AND CONCEPT SELECTION.....................57
4.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................57
4.2 Concept Generation...................................................................................................57
4.2 Concept One- Open Orientation................................................................................58
4.3 Concept two- Closed Orientation..............................................................................60
4.4 Concept three- Closed Orientation with Air Preheating............................................62
4.4 Concept Four- Open Orientation with Air Preheating without Condenser or Cyclone
...................................................................................................................................62
4.5 Concept Selection......................................................................................................63
4.6 Concept Screening.....................................................................................................64
4.7 Concept Scoring........................................................................................................65
4.8 Product Decomposition.............................................................................................65
4.9 Chosen Concept.........................................................................................................66
4.10 Chapter Summary....................................................................................................67
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CHAPTER 5- DETAIL DESIGN.......................................................................................68
5.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................68
5.2 Material Selection......................................................................................................68
5.3 Load Information to be Considered in Design..........................................................69
5.4 Design of Rotary Atomizer.......................................................................................70
5.5 Designing Spray Drying Chamber............................................................................71
5.5. Chamber Dimensions...............................................................................................76
5.6 Mechanical Design....................................................................................................77
5.7 Hot Air Inlet..............................................................................................................77
5.8 Sizing Heater and Blower..........................................................................................78
5.9 Heat Exchanger Calculation......................................................................................79
5.11 Simulation...............................................................................................................83
5.10 Summary.................................................................................................................83
CHAPTER 6: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS.....................................................................84
6.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................84
6.2 Design Brief and Discussions....................................................................................84
6.3 Integrated Operation of the Subsystems....................................................................84
6.4 Working Drawings....................................................................................................85
6.5 Working Components................................................................................................85
6.6 Financial Analysis.....................................................................................................86
6.8 Aspen Simulation......................................................................................................94
6.8 Aspen Simulation Results Vs Calculated Results.....................................................95
6.9 Chapter Summary......................................................................................................96
CHAPTER 7: CONLUSION AND RECOMENDATIONS..............................................97
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7.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................97
7.2 Project Overview.......................................................................................................97
7.3 Recommendations.....................................................................................................98
7.4 Project Constraints....................................................................................................98
7.5 Conclusion.................................................................................................................99
References.........................................................................................................................100
APPENDICES..................................................................................................................102
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: Showing sun drying process of washed chipped plastic material......................2
Figure 1.2: Showing rigid plastic products that can be recycled..........................................2
Figure 1.3: Showing Process flow of the plastic recycling process at Mega Pak.................3
Figure1.4: Showing a SWOT analysis to justify the project................................................5
Figure2.1: Showing the Principle of h/x diagram...............................................................11
Figure 2.2: Showing Types of Spray Drying Chamber (Niro, 2012).................................14
Figure 2.3: Showing an Indirect oil-fired air heater (Niro, 2012)......................................19
Figure 2.4: Air disperser for rotary air flow (Niro, 2012)..................................................20
Figure 2.5: Showing an Air disperser for straight downward air flow (Niro, 2012)..........20
Figure 2.6 Showing an Air disperser DDD for downward and rotating air flow (Niro,
2012)...................................................................................................................................21
Figure2.1: Showing a Rotary Atomizer..............................................................................24
Figure 2.8: Showing some types of atomizing wheels: a) with straight vanes, b) with
curved vanes, c) with bushings (Niro, 2012)......................................................................25
Figure 2.9 Showing a Cyclone separator (Niro, 2012).......................................................26
Figure 2.10 Temperature Air Flow Curve..........................................................................33
Figure 2.11: Showing Constant Used to Calculate Bundle Diameter.................................38
Figure 2.12: Shows Approximate Bundle Diameter for Selected Heat Exchanger............39
Figure3.1: Showing the Problem decomposition process...................................................48
Figure 3.2: Showing Black Box..........................................................................................48
Figure 3.3: Showing Problem Decomposition into Sub-Functions....................................49
Figure 3.4: Showing Internal search results........................................................................50
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Figure 3.4 Atomization Sub-Problem.................................................................................51
Figure 3.5: House of Quality for the recycled rigid plastic Dryer......................................52
Figure 3.4: Showing Fish bone analysis for contaminated material...................................55
Figure 4.1: Showing Organization chart.............................................................................57
Figure 4.2: Showing Concept 1- Open orientation.............................................................58
Figure 4.3: Showing Concept 2 Closed orientation............................................................59
Figure 4.4: Showing Concept 3..........................................................................................61
Figure 4.5: Showing Concept 4..........................................................................................62
Figure 4.6: Showing Structural Decomposition of the Chosen Design Concept................65
Figure5.1: Showing Spray Chamber Inputs and Outputs...................................................70
Figure 6.4 Showing Project SWOT Analyses....................................................................92
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1: Showing Project Time Frame..............................................................................6
Table 2.1: Outlining Material for Pipe work......................................................................21
Table 1.2: Showing effect of droplet size on the number of droplets and total surface area
............................................................................................................................................23
Table 2.3: Outlining the Influence of various factors on mean particle size......................25
Table 2.4: Shows letter combinations.................................................................................27
Table 2.5: Shows different material of construction...........................................................35
Table 2.6: Shows shell wall thickness for different materials and shell diameter..............39
Table 3.1: Outlining number of Interviews conducted.......................................................46
Table 3.2 Concept Combination Table...............................................................................51
Table 4.1: The Concept Rating Key for the Screening Process..........................................64
Table 4.2: Outlining Rating for Concept Scoring Criterion...............................................64
Table 5.1: Summarizing Material Selection.......................................................................67
Table 5.2: Summarizing Load Information for Design......................................................68
Table 5.3: Outlining Range of Operation Parameters.........................................................69
Table 5.4: Summarizing Design Values for Wheel............................................................70
Table5.5 Summarizing Parameter Name and Values.........................................................71
Table 5.6: Summarizing load data for heat exchanger calculations...................................78
Table 5.6: Design Data Summary.......................................................................................82
Table 6.1 Outlining Specifications of Components............................................................84
Table 6.2 Outlining a Summary of Capital Expenditure....................................................87
Table 6.3 Showing Standard Number of Operators in the Operation Flow........................89
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Table 6.4 Showing a Summary of Financial Analysis........................................................91
Table 6.5 Outlining the Bill of Quantities..........................................................................92
Table 6.6: Showing calculated results summary Vs Aspen simulation results...................94

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the
material into useful products. The process of recycling plastic scrap involves various steps
before the material is ready for reprocessing. Before recycling, the plastics are sorted
according to their resin type. These plastic recyclables are then shredded. After shredding,
the material is chipped to further cut plastic scrap into small pieces and that it is then melted
and extruded into the form of pellets which are then used to manufacture other products.
This process of plastic recycling can be done under one roof with output of one machine
being the input to the next machine. The process is, however, not a smooth process.
1.2 Problem Statement
Following the installation of a second and improved pelletizing machine in the Poly-cycling
factory at Mega Pak in 2018, there was an increased volume of plastic material being
recycled per shift. The old pelletizing machine was also upgraded in 2019 so that it operates
in the same way as the new pelletizing machine and the results were an increase in
processing speed and efficiency in the pelletizing process. However, on both pelletizing
machines, there were very frequent breakdowns during shift caused by blocked strainers. On
root cause analysis it was found out that the strainers were blocking by dirty chipped
material that come with metal, wood, gravel and even glass which do not melt during
pelletizing.
Due to the frequent breakdown, caused by trapped non-plastic material, of the extrusion unit
of the pelletizer machine, it was noted that there is need for material to be washed soon after
passing through the chipper to trap all non-plastic impurities from it. A washing method was
designed to remove the impurities. Currently the material is washed in a big drum but this is
just temporary and a washing line is needed. The material cannot be pelletized while it is
wet for this will result in molten plastics with erratic behavior both during pelletizing and
during production at the plastic conversion machines that turn the pellets into plastic
products. This erratic behavior involves plastic bubbles that can explode and injure
employees or result in short shots during product formation. The washed chipped plastic

material takes long to dry using the current method being used at the company which
involves drying it under the sun. This creates a bottle neck considering that there are two
pelletizers needing to be fed with material. Besides being slow, the process is not reliable
during bad weather and takes a lot of space and often violates 5s guidelines. The process
time wasted while waiting for material to dry is also a great waste. The author noted that
there is need for a faster method of drying. Figure 1.1 shows material being sun dried.
Figure 1.1: Showing sun drying process of washed chipped plastic material
Figure 1.2: Showing rigid plastic products that can be recycled

1.3 Background
The existing process at Mega Pak is a line production layout such that one output of a
machine is the input to the next machine. The shredder being the first machine in the layout
produces an output which is the input to the chipper machine. The output of the chipper
machine passes through a water bath where cleaning from non-plastic contaminants takes
place before it is sun dried. The washing equipment currently being used is a bin with water
and this process needs a person to actively clean the material. The washing and cleaning
process creates a bottleneck especially now that a second pelletizer machine was installed
with throughput twice as much as the first. The process flow is shown below.
Figure 1.3: Showing Process flow of the plastic recycling process at Mega Pak

1.4 Aim
The aim of this project is to design a machine to dry washed rigid plastic chips during
recycling.
1.5 Objectives
i. To design mechanisms to evaporate water fast from solid rigid plastic chips
ii. To design shell where drying is to happen
iii. To design auxiliary processes during the drying process ie) filters, fan
iv. To design mechanisms to recycle heat
1.6 Scope
This project focuses on the mechanization of the material drying process during the rigid
plastic recycling process. This unit will then eliminate the excess moisture after a
dewatering process by means of a dryer that will employ mechanical drying technique of
spray drying. Hot air will be applied in a shell where spray drying will be taking place. The
project shall not cover the selection of the heat source but its capacity will be calculated.
1.7 Justification
Plastic is one of the single biggest polluters of land and water in the world and that is
worsened by the fact that there is no known way to degrade the plastic within an economic
timeframe. For countries like Zimbabwe which do not manufacture their own virgin rigid
plastic pellet raw material, it is very reasonable to recycle the plastic at the end of the
product’s lifecycle especially considering the expense of importing raw materials. However,
in Zimbabwe the technology to recycle plastic is not that advanced and is often slow,
inefficient or both. Usually this takes away the already slim advantages of recycling plastic
against importing virgin material and hence there is no incentive for companies to recycle.
This project is to address some of the bottleneck issues that make recycling of plastic very
slow and reduce the processing time as well as increase volumes of recycled plastic. The

Author through this project proposes a faster way to dry plastic chips before being
pelletized. In industry, time is money and hence any reduction in process time directly leads
to savings in monetary value. If the company can recycle the plastic fast enough, then it may
reduce the amount of plastic imports as well.
reduced process time(cure to one of the

seven great losses)
Strength improved throughput
cost of electicity
Weakness
Solar energy for power

Opportunity saves company space that was used
for sun drying plastics can be used
emmergency of faster and more

efficient drying methods
Threat
Figure 1.4: Showing a SWOT analysis to justify the project
1.8 Methodology
This section gives an account of what was done to achieve the objectives and hence the aim
of the project. The tools that were used in data gathering, analysis and interpretation are also
outlined therein. It also outlines the concept generation methodologies that were used in
order to come up with a solution that matches the problem at hand. The software
1.9 Timeline

The time frame of the project is shown in Table 1.1 below.
Table 1.1: Showing Project Time Frame
ACTIVITY FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JULY AUG

1. Literature Review
2. Methodology and Design
Calculations
3. Results and Discussion
4. Conclusion and Fabrication
of Prototype
5. Documentation
1.10 Chapter Summary
This chapter introduces the project where the problem being to reduce the processing time of
rigid plastic recycling by designing a fast and effective way to dry plastic chips after
washing prior to being fed to the pelletizer machine. The company being used as a case
study is Mega Pak Zimbabwe. The project has been justified and its benefits outlined
clearly. The aim, scope and objectives were also clearly outlined as well as the methodology
to guide how the project will be carried out in general. Literature review will be done using
different sources as the project progresses. Chapter 2 will review literature on ways to
drying of material in general that can be applied to plastic drying. Proceeding chapters will
generally review literature, analyze the present plastic drying systems, evaluation of
optimum parameters, concept selection, design calculations, assess environmental impacts,
the financial costing, and economics of implementing the project

CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
The modern world uses more and more plastic as packaging and as such, more and more of
it ends up polluting the environment as there is no known economic way to degrade it. As
more companies incline towards Earthman-ship in their strategic thinking, recycling of
plastic is rising as one of the solutions towards the plastic pollution issue. Plastic recycling
involves the tedious processes of sorting, cleaning, drying, melting and pelletizing. This
chapter covers the literature of what has been done already towards material cleaning and
drying before that could be relevant to plastic recycling.
2.1 Spray Drying Principle and Terms
Spray drying is an industrial process for dehydration of a liquid feed containing dissolved
and or dispersed solids, by transforming that liquid into a spray of small droplets and
exposing these droplets to a flow of hot air. (Masters, 1972.)The very large surface area of
the spray droplets causes evaporation of the water to take place very quickly, converting the
droplets into dry powder particles.
2.2 Drying Air Characteristics
The drying medium used for drying is atmospheric air, cleaned of dust by filtration and
heated to provide the heat necessary for evaporation. Evaporation proceeds initially under
adiabatic conditions. In such a system, all sensible heat from the drying air is utilized for
evaporation of water, which becomes, as vapor, part of the drying air. (Snoeren, 1984)The
enthalpy of the air remains constant, supposing that the liquid entered the system with a
temperature of 0°C (zero enthalpy) and absence of any heat loss. The various terms
characterizing the drying air conditions are as follows:
 Dry bulb temperature (td) is the temperature of air, which is not saturated with water
vapour, as measured by an ordinary thermometer. In practice, the dry bulb is just
referred as air temperature and is expressed either in °C (t) or as the absolute
temperature in °K (T) whereby

T =t+ 273.15 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.0

 Wet bulb temperature (twb) (or more precisely Adiabatic saturation temperature) is a
characteristic of moist air of a given dry bulb temperature, expressing the saturation
temperature of that air with the same enthalpy, i.e. obtained by evaporation of 0°C
water under adiabatic conditions. The difference between dry and wet bulb
temperatures is a measure of drying capability (driving force). It is the temperature to
which the air of dry bulb temperature (t) will drop, when evaporating water in an
isolated air-water system until saturation condition occur (supposing that the
temperature of water to be evaporated is 0°C). The enthalpy of the air during this
evaporation remains unchanged, as the heat from the air is utilized for evaporation
only. It can be also expressed as the temperature a droplet of water will obtain when
exposed to a flow of air of temperature (t). Measuring wet bulb temperature is based
on the same principle, i.e. the thermometer bulb is kept wet by a thin film of water
and exposed to a flow of air. The relative humidity of the air at wet bulb temperature
is 1.
 Dew point temperature (tdp) is the temperature where condensation of vapour will
commence, if the air is cooled down at constant absolute humidity. The relative
humidity of the air at the dew point temperature is 1 and its enthalpy is lower than
that of the same air at its dry bulb temperature and wet bulb temperature.
 Air absolute humidity (y) is the ratio of the amount of water vapour (m y) to the
amount of dry air (ma). Usually it is expressed in kg of water vapour per kg of dry
air.
Thus:
Mv
Y= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.1
Ma
0.622∗Pt
y= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.2
P t−P v
Where:
PV is the partial pressure of water vapour,
Pt the total pressure
0.622 is molecular weight ratio of the water vapour and of air

Saturation point is the air temperature at which any further temperature drop will result in
condensation. Saturated air has equal dry bulb, wet bulb and dew point temperatures.
 Drying air rate (Aa) is usually expressed as the mass flow of ambient air per hour
(kg/h) and includes both the amount of dry air (A d) and water vapour (Av) which can
be calculated using equations:
A a=A v + A d … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.3

Aa
Ad = … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … ... Equation 2.4
1+ y
A a∗y
A v= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation2.5
1+ y
 Heat capacity is the amount of heat necessary to heat 1 kg of a substance by 1°C and
is a function of the temperature.
 Heat capacity of the air (ca) is the amount of heat necessary to heat 1 kg of dry air by
1°C. It is expressed in J/kg/°C and is temperature dependent as shown below, where
T is temperature in K:
−21900
1.14543
T
C a=1004.68+355.633∗e … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation 2.6
For routine technical calculations a constant value 0.245 kcal/kg/°C or 1.026 kJ/kg/°C may
be used.
The amount of heat (Q) necessary to heat a given amount of dry air (Ad) from t1 to t2 °C is
Q= A d∗( C a 2∗t 2−C a 1∗t 1) … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.7
In which ca1 and ca2 are the values calculated from equation above 2.7 corresponding to the
temperatures t 1 andt 2.
 Heat capacity of water (cw) is approximately 1.0 kcal/kg/°C or 4.186 kJ/kg/°C.
 Heat capacity of water vapour in J/kg/°C is:
−418.99
0.7724
T
C v =1845.8+33336.33∗e … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation2.7

 Latent heat of evaporation (r) or vaporization is the amount of heat necessary to

transform a liquid to vapour at constant temperature. The reverse process i.e.
transforming a vapour to liquid requires a release of the same quantity of heat and is
called heat of condensation. The latent heat of water is 597.3 kcal/kg or 2500 kJ/kg
at the temperature 0°C and barometric pressure 760 mm Hg.
 Enthalpy (h) of air is the thermal energy of that air expressed as sum of heat
necessary to evaporate its moisture content at 0°C and to heat both the water vapour
and dry air to its actual temperature, as expressed by the equation:
h=C a∗t+ y∗( r + Cw ∗t ) … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.8
 Density ῥ of air is the weight per unit volume of air and it is a function of air
temperature, moisture content and pressure. Usually it is expressed in kg/m 3. The
density of dry air ῥp at the temperature of 80°C at the barometrical pressure 760 mm
Hg is equal to 1, hence at the temperature of t °C it is:
353.15
ρd = … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation2.9
273.15+t
The density of ambient (moist) air is:
ρd∗1+ y
ρ= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation 2.10
1+1.6∗y
To calculate air density at the actual pressure B (in mm Hg), the above results must be
multiplied by B/760.
2.3 Terms and definitions
The following terms are used in spray drying technology:

 Ambient air is the atmospheric air supplied to the system from the surroundings of
ambient temperature (ta) and ambient humidity (ya)
 Inlet air temperature (t1) is the temperature of the air after heating or cooling at the
inlet of a processing system having an inlet air absolute humidity (y1)
 Outlet air temperature (t2) and outlet air humidity (y2) express the same for air
leaving the system
 Water content of the feed or product can be expressed in several ways:
 Total solids content (Ts) or Moisture content (W) expressed in weight percent.

 Moisture content on dry basis (x) expresses the ratio of the quantity of moisture to
the quantity of dry solids. The relationships between these expressions are as shown
in equations 2.11, 2.12 and 2.13 below:
W =100−T s … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.11

W
X= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.12
100−W
100∗X
W= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation2.13
1+ X
2.4 Psychrometric Chart
The conditions of drying air throughout the drying process are illustrated by the
psychrometric chart (Mollier diagram or h-x, sometimes i-x diagram). The y-axis represents
the temperature and the x-axis absolute humidity. The psychrometric chart is constructed so
that the isotherm corresponding to 0°C is horizontal. The isotherms for higher temperatures
slope gradually more upwards. Lines representing enthalpy, saturation, constant relative
humidity and vapour are also shown. The saturation line divides the chart into the zone of
unsaturated air and the zone of mist. The psychrometric chart illustrating all these air
characteristics is given on fig 2.1 below.
Figure 2.1: Showing the Principle of h/x diagram.


2.5 Fall Velocities
Fig shows the free fall velocity which is the reciprocal value of fluidizing velocity or
suspension velocity for particles sized between 0.01 and 10 mm (10 - 10000 µm) and having
particle density 1400 and 1000 kg/m 3. The air reference temperature is 80°C. This range
represents roughly the particle density extremes for HDPE chipped plastic material.
The calculations were done according to (Schlünder, 1972), who has introduced
dimensionless expressions for velocity v* and particle diameter d*, as follows:
¿
V =V f ¿
¿
d =d f ¿
¿
V =¿
Where:
 V f =¿ Fluidizing velocity m/s; D P=¿particle diameter m; d ¿ =¿dimensionless
particle diameter; pa=¿density of air kg/m3 ; p P=¿density of particle kg/m3
 pa=¿Air viscosity Pa.s; V ¿ =¿ dimensionless velocity; g=¿gravity constant: 9.81
m/s2
2.6 Components of a Spray Drying Installation
Drying chamber
 Hot air supply system
 Supply fan
 Air filters
 Air heater
 Air disperser
Feed supply system

 Feed tank(s)
 Feed pump/supply pump
 Concentrate heater
 Filter
 Homogenizer/high pressure pump

 Feed line
Atomizing device
 Rotary atomizer
 Pressure nozzle atomizer
 Two-fluid nozzle atomizer
Product recovery system

 Cyclone
 Bag filter
 Wet scrubber
 Combinations of the above
 Final product conveying, storage and bagging off system instrumentation
2.7 Drying chamber
The shape of the drying chamber, the location of the air disperser, atomizing device, exhaust
air outlet, powder discharge and after treatment system determine the air flow pattern,
product flow and product drying quality. Various drying chamber types are applied for
products and have the following characteristics

Figure 2.2: Showing Types of Spray Drying Chamber (Niro, 2012)
Chamber shape
 wide body
 Tall form
 Horizontal box type
Product flow:
 Leaving the drying chamber with the exhaust air
 Partially separated from the exhaust air in drying chamber
Product discharge:
 By gravity (conical bottom)
 Mechanically (flat bottom)

Air flow pattern:
 Rotary downward
 Straight downward
 Straight horizontal
 Air/spray mixing:
 Concurrent
 Counter-current
Referring to the air flow conventional drying chambers is distinguished by their vertical or
horizontal design. The vertical chamber is formed by a vertical cylinder of wide body or tall
form shape. The ceiling of a cylindrical tower is usually flat. Recently, however, to comply
with the safety requirements on mechanical strength in connection with pressure shock
resistance, a conical shaped ceiling, convex or concave, is becoming more and more
common. Below the cylindrical part is a cone section of 40 to 60° angle, enabling product
discharge by gravity or a flat bottom (possibly also slightly concave or convex conical),
requiring a mechanical device to bring the powder to the discharge opening, placed in the
centre.
The horizontal chambers are often referred to as box dryers, which is very well descriptive
for their shape. The bottom of a box dryer is either flat or trough-formed requiring a
mechanical device, a scraper, or a screw conveyor for removing the powder. Drying
chambers are equipped with service doors, inspection windows, light sources, air sweep
doors, wall sweep ports, hammers, overpressure vents and fire extinguishing water nozzles.
The drying chamber is usually insulated with 80-100 mm mineral wool to reduce radiation
loss, clad with stainless-steel, plastic-coated steel or aluminum plates. Today overpressure
vents, fire extinguishing and overpressure suppressing equipment, complying with national
or international standards are required by the authorities in practically all countries, whereas
all unnecessary components such as inspection windows, built-in illumination sources and
even service doors etc. and, generally all components affecting the smoothness of the
chamber inner wall and creating dead pockets where accumulation of dust or washing water
are gradually being eliminated for hygienic reasons.

From the very same reason even mineral wool chamber wall insulation is now considered
undesirable being a potential danger area for bacterial infection, since cracks in chamber
walls eventually occur over the years of operation. A disadvantage of an insulation-free
chamber is high heat loss, resulting in about 10% evaporation capacity loss and high
temperature in the drying room. Removable air insulation panels are now being introduced
and are already being used successfully. The duct for the exhaust air in the old chamber
types is a continuation of the conical base, and in this case the exhaust air carries also all the
powder out of the chamber. However, in most modern dryers, the powder is separated as
much as possible from the exhaust air already in the chamber. To achieve this, the exhaust
air is drawn either from the upper part of the cylinder periphery, sometimes through the
ceiling, or by a duct projecting into the cone with a slight downward slope. The tall form
dryers are often equipped with an enlarged conical section (bustle) from which the exhaust
air is withdrawn. The development of the spray drying technology achieved within the last
four decades established the advantages of the two-stage drying method.
The principle of two stages drying requires discharging of moist powder from the chamber.
Therefore, modern dryers are based on chamber types enabling powder discharge without
mechanical means and partial separation from the exhaust air. The most up-to-date drying
installations i.e., drying chambers with integrated fluid beds or belts accommodate the
second drying stage inside the spray drying chamber by means of a static fluid bed or a
conveying belt assembly located at the chamber bottom. One of the most important factors
when designing a spray drying chamber is that no ducts, air-brooms or the like are placed
inside the chamber thus obstructing the air flow as that will give reasons of product deposits
with frequent cleaning and/or burned deposits as a result.
2.8 Hot air supply system
In a spray dryer, the hot air supply system consists of

 Air Supply Fan
 Air Filters
 Air Heater
 Air Distribution.

 Air ducts
2.81 Air supply fan

The process air for the main drying chamber is supplied by a centrifugal air supply fan direct
driven by a motor the speed of which is controlled by a frequency converter. This way there
will be no energy loss due to belt transmission or dampers controlling the air flow.
2.82 Air filters

The drying air is usually supplied into the system from outside the building. It is normally
pre-filtered by a coarse filter. However, it must be realized that dust laden air can cause
faster fouling of the filters, and contribute possibly to bacteriological problems or even fire
hazard if the filters become too dirty or if they are damaged.
When using atmospheric air, the intake filters should be placed on the windward side of the
factory, reasonably high above the terrain and far enough from known sources of dust (busy
roads, chimneys, exhaust stacks from other dryers etc.). Until a few years ago no special
requirements were given as to the filtration of the process air for the spray drying process.
Today, however, very strict requirements are presented by local authorities in order to
ensure a cleaner operation. Filter standards are referred to below, and it is important to refer
to the test method when specifying the filter efficiency in %. Common for the different
requirements is that:
 The air should be pre-filtered and supplied by a separate fan to the fan/filter/heater
room. This room must be under pressure to avoid unfiltered air to enter.
 Filtration degree and filter position depend on the final temperature of the process air
as follows:
1) For main drying air to be heated above 120°C, only coarse filtration up to 90% is needed.
The filter should be placed on the pressure side of the fan.
2) For secondary air to be heated below 120°C or not heated at all, the filtration must be 90-
95%, and the filter must be placed after the heater/cooler. Some countries and customers
have even stricter requirements demanding a filtration of up to 99.995%, corresponding to
EU13/14 (or H13/14).

2.8.3 Air heater

The drying air can be heated in different ways:
 Indirect: Steam / Oil / Gas / Hot oil
 Direct: Gas / Electricity
2.8.3.1 Indirect heater

A steam heater is a simple radiator. The temperature to be obtained depends on the steam
pressure available. Under normal conditions it is possible to obtain air temperatures 10°C
lower than the corresponding saturation enthalpy of the steam. Modern steam heaters are
divided in sections, so that the cold air first meets the condensate section, then a section with
low steam pressure (which is usually the biggest one in order to utilize as much low-
pressure steam as possible), and then the air finally enters the high-pressure steam section.
The air heater consists of rows of finned tubes housed in an insulated metal case. The heat
load is calculated from the quantity and specific heat of the air. The heater size depends
upon the heat transfer properties of the tubes and fins and is usually about 50 Kcal/°C / h /
m3 for an air velocity of 5 m/sec. Steam-heated air heaters will usually have an efficiency of
98-99%. As the steam boiler is usually placed at some distance from the air heater, 2-3 bar g
extra pressure on the boiler should be anticipated due to pressure loss in the steam pipe and
over the regulating valve. To avoid corrosion of the tubes in the air heater it is recommended
to use stainless steel.
In indirect oil and gas heaters drying air and combustion gases have separate flow passage.
The combustion gasses pass through galvanized tubes that act as heat transfer surface for the
drying air. The combustion chamber is made of heat-resistant steel. The end cover of the
heater should be removable for cleaning of tubes. Heaters of this type will in the range of
175-250°C have an efficiency of about 85%

Figure 2.3: Showing an Indirect oil-fired air heater (Niro, 2012)
2.8.3.2 Direct heater

Direct gas heaters are only used when the combustion gas can be allowed to come into
contact with the product. For that reason, they are not common in the food and dairy
industries. The direct gas heater is cheap, it has a high efficiency, and the obtainable
temperature can be as high as 1650°C. (Masters, 1972.)When a plant is designed with an air
heater with direct combustion, it is necessary to calculate the amount of vapour resulting
from the combustion (44 mg/kg dry air/°C), as this will increase the humidity in the drying
air. The outlet temperature has therefore to be increased in order to compensate for this
increase in the humidity and to maintain the relative humidity.
2.8.4 Air dispersers

Good mixing of the hot drying air with the spray of droplets and the control of the air and
particle flow are essential for the whole process and has a decisive influence on the end
product quality and trouble-free operation. (Snoeren, 1984)This is ensured by the air
disperser which is a vital part of the whole system. There are two basic types of air
dispersers:
 Air disperser that creates rotary air flow and used in vertical wide body chambers.
This type of air disperser operates usually with a rotary atomizer but is also suitable
for pressure nozzles.

Figure 2.4: Air disperser for rotary air flow (Niro, 2012)
 Air disperser creating straight air flow and used exclusively with pressure nozzles for
vertical downward air flow (for instance in the tall form dryer, multi stage dryer and
the integrated filter dryer). Depending on the type of dryer one chamber can
accommodate either just one or several air dispersers of this type (arranged
symmetrically in the ceiling). (Herring, 1995) The common goal is to have an air
distribution and nozzle assembly that reduces product deposits in the drying
chamber, and that the nozzles are interchangeable during the production to allow for
continuous operation for weeks without stop. To secure a straight downward air
flow, this type of air disperser is typically assembled with a number of perforated
plates through which the long nozzle lances protrude.
Figure 2.5: Showing an Air disperser for straight downward air flow (Niro, 2012)

 Today a new type of air disperser has therefore been developed. It operates still with
a straight downward airflow but without perforated plates i.e. the pressure loss is
low. It is even possible to obtain a rotation of the drying air to utilize the drying air
best possible. (Marshall, 1995)The nozzle lances are short and operator friendly, and
it is easy to adjust the nozzle position – also during operation - to obtain the degree
and type of agglomeration as wanted.
Figure 2.6: Showing an Air disperser DDD for downward and rotating air flow (Niro, 2012)
2.8.5 Pipe work

Several considerations are to be made when choosing material for pipe work for the hot
moist air that is used in drying of material. Different material with adverse advantages and
disadvantages are candidates for use. In this section, these are discussed in short.
Table 2.1: Outlining Material for Pipe work
Type of material Properties Image

Aluminium foil  Light
 No need for precise measurements

Semi-rigid metal  Rigid and strong

duct(aluminium)  Stable connection
 Smoother inside hence no material or lint
accumulation
 Cheap
 Durable
Rigid metal duct  Used when duct work has to be concealed

under a wall
 Smooth inside no material or lint
accumulation
 Need elbow joints
Plastic and vinyl  Not good in extreme heat

ducts
2.8.6 Feed supply system

The duty of the feed supply system is to deliver feed to the dryer chamber via the atomizing
device. It is actually a link between the evaporator and the spray dryer, and must
compensate also for the capacity fluctuations of both units.
2.8.6.1 Feed tank

Feed tanks act as a buffer compensating capacity variations. The size of a feed tank must be
in relation to the plant capacity corresponding to about 5-10 minutes operation (Ricker,
1988).
2.8.6.2 Feed pump

Supplies the wet material to the atomizing device and therefore the type of pump depends on
atomizer type. For low pressure systems, as in case of wheel atomizers, almost any type of
pump can be used, however preferably a positive pump as e.g. a mono-pump. For high
pressure nozzles, a high-pressure pump has to be used. A non-positive displacement pump

delivering the feed to the inlet side of the high-pressure pump with a pressure of a few bars
has in any case to be incorporated into the system. The feed pump is in fact a dosing pump,
supplying the required amount of wet material to the dryer. The amount is controlled by the
outlet air temperature of the dryer by means of variable speed drive. For low pressure
positive pumps and for high pressure pump frequency converters are used to control the feed
flow to the atomizer.
2.8.7 Atomizing device
The purpose of the atomizing device is to transform the feed into a large number of droplets
of well-defined size distribution. The atomization increases tremendously the surface area of
the water which is then exposed to the hot drying air. The rate of evaporation is then directly
proportional to the surface area and thus a fine atomization has positive influence on many
properties. The effect of droplet size on the number of droplets and their total surface area
when atomizing one liter of water, is shown in table below.
Table 1.2: Showing effect of droplet size on the number of droplets and total surface area
Droplet size (µm) Size of droplet(*10^6) Total surface area m^2

1000 1.9 6
500 15.3 12
100 1909.8 60
50 15279.5 120
10 10909859.0 600
5 15278874.5 1200
The spray of droplets is characterized by a mean droplet size and droplet size distribution.
Both depend on the type of atomizing device, operating conditions and the properties of the
atomized liquid (concentrate viscosity, surface tension and density). It is common for all
types of atomizers that increasing the amount of energy available for atomization results in
smaller droplet size. With the same device and same amount of energy, the viscosity of the
atomized liquid appears to influence the mean droplet size by 0.2 direct power relationship
whereas surface tension has much less significant influence (Snoeren, 1984). The selection
of the atomization device for a given duty depends mainly on the desired characteristics of
the final product. There are three types of atomizers as described below.

Figure 2.7: Showing a Rotary Atomizer
2.8.7.1Rotary wheel atomizer

From the design point of view, the wheel atomizer consists of circular horizontal top and
bottom plates with radial vanes or bushings between them. The feed enters close to the
centre, accelerates across the wheel surface (vanes) and achieves the wheel’s peripheral
speed. In a wheel atomizer centrifugal energy is utilized for atomization. A thin film of
liquid is formed, as the liquid moves across the vanes or through the bushings, and this film
readily disintegrates into droplets when thrown off the wheel edge. Wheel atomizers applied
in milk drying operate with peripheral speeds in the range 100-200 m/s, however mostly in
the higher speed range. Some types of wheel are shown on Figure 12.

Figure 2.8: Showing some types of atomizing wheels: a) with straight vanes, b) with curved
vanes, c) with bushings (Niro, 2012)
The atomization effect depends mainly on the peripheral speed. However, it was found, that
at a given peripheral speed, a wheel of smaller diameter produces a finer spray than a larger
wheel. Further influencing factors include the liquid loading and the number, height and
design of vanes. Efforts have been made to predict the mean droplet diameter by
mathematical expressions. However, it is still difficult to do it with reasonably confidence
and universal validity. The various factors and their influence on mean droplet size, reported
by (Masters, 1972.), are shown in Table 2.3.
Table 2.3: Outlining the Influence of various factors on mean particle size
Factor Influence expressed in the power range of

wheel speed -0.6 to -0.8
wheel diameter -0.2 to -0.85
Peripheral speed -0.54 to -0.83
Feed rate 0.17 to 0.24
Vane height -0.10 to -0.12
Vane number -0.10 to -0.12
Feed viscosity 0.10 to 0.20
Feed density -0.5
Feed surface tension 0.1

2.8.8 Product Recovery

There are various types and constructions of powder separation equipment which includes,
but not limited to:
 Cyclone separator
 Bag filter
 Wet scrubber
 Combinations of the above.
2.8.8.1 Cyclone separator

The cyclone has some obvious advantages if it is constructed properly, it is easily
maintained as there are no moving parts, and, furthermore, it is easy to clean, if it is a fully
welded construction. But it does not live up to today’s strict emission requirements as it –
depending on the product and operation of the dryer - may reach 250 - 400 mg/Nm 3. The
operation theory is based on a vortex motion where the centrifugal force is acting on each
particle and therefore causes the particle to move away from the cyclone axis towards the
inner cyclone wall. (Herring, 1995) However, the movement in the radial direction is the
result of two opposing forces where the centrifugal force acts to move the particle to the
wall, while the drag force of the air acts to carry the particles into the axis. As the centrifugal
force is predominant, a separation takes place. Powder and air pass tangentially into the
cyclone at equal velocities.

Figure 2.9: Showing a Cyclone separator (Niro, 2012)
Powder and air swirl in a spiral form down to the base of the cyclone separating the powder
out to the cyclone wall. Powder leaves the bottom of the cyclone via a locking device. The
clean air spirals upwards along the centre axis of the cyclone and passes out at the top. The
centrifugal force each particle is exposed to can be seen in this equation:
2
MVt
C= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.17
r
Where:
 C = centrifugal force
 m = mass of particle
 Vt = tangential air velocity
 r = radial distance to the wall from any given point
From this equation it can be concluded that the higher particle mass, the better efficiency.
The shorter way the particle has to travel the better efficiency, and the closer the particle is
to the wall the better efficiency, because the velocity is highest and the radial distance is
short. However, time is required for the particles to travel to the cyclone wall, so a sufficient
air residence time should be taken into consideration when designing a cyclone. From above
equation it is evident that small cyclones (diameter less than 1 m) will have the highest
efficiency.

2.9 Evaporation and product output rate calculations
Table 2.4: Shows letter combinations
First Letter Second Letter Third Letter

E = evaporator (Pre-Dryer) F = feed R = rate (kg/h)
D = spray dryer E = evaporation S = total solids (%)
B = Fluid bed P = product
 Evaporation and product rate from the evaporator:
EER=EFR−EPR Equation2.18
EPR=EFR−EER Equation2.19
EFR∗EFS
EPR= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation 2.20
EPS
EEF =EFR∗ 1− ( EFS

EPS )
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation 2.21
EFR∗EFS
EPS= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.22
EPR
 Evaporation and product rate from the spray dryer:
DFR=EPR … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation2.23
DER=DFR−DPR … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation 2.24
DPR=DFR−DER … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation 2.25
DFR∗DFS
DPR= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.26
DPS
DER=DFR∗ 1− ( DFS
DPS )
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.27
DFR∗DFS
DPS= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation 2.28
DP
2.10 Heating of atmospheric air
If an amount Aα of atmospheric air with humidity Yα is to be heated from a temperature t 1 to

a temperature t2, the amount of heat Q necessary is calculated by the equation
Aa
Q= ∗[t ∗c a 2−t 1∗c a1 + y a (c v 2∗t 2−c v 1∗t 1 )] … … … … … ….. Equation2.29
1+Y a 2

2.10.1 Mixing of two air stream

Two quantities of air A1 and A2, with humidities y1 and y2 and temperatures t1 and t2 are to be
mixed, the temperature t3 of the mixed air calculated by a simplified method shown by
equation 2.30 as follows:
A1 ¿ t 1 + A 2 ¿ t 2
t 3=
A 1+¿ A 2
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.30 ¿
2.11 Drying
Drying is the process of driving out wetness from one material by use of a medium lie hot
air.
2.11.1 Drying Definitions and Factors Affecting Drying

Drying occurs when a vapor pressure differential exists between the plastic chip moisture
and the surrounding air. Moisture migrates to the medium with the lowest vapor pressure. If
the air is drier than the chips, moisture migrates from the chips to the air. (Deomano,
2001)On the other hand, if the moisture in the air is greater than in the chips, water will
migrate to the plastic chips. As moisture migrates from the pellet surface to the air (assume
the air has lower moisture content). Heating the chip increases moisture diffusion through
the chips. This also increases the moisture migration from the plastic chip surface to the air.
Terms used to describe drying factors are as follows:
 Relative humidity
 Dew point
 Moisture weight percent in the plastic
Relative humidity is the actual air moisture compared to the air saturated with water at that
temperature. The higher the air temperature, the more moisture the air can hold. Hot summer
air can hold significantly more moisture than cold winter air can. Similarly, hot air in a
drying oven can hold more moisture at a higher temperature. If the hot air has a high
humidity, plastics can easily absorb the moisture from the air, increasing their moisture
content. The air dew point determines the air moisture. The dew point is the temperature at
which moisture condenses out of the air. (Pierrehumbert, 2007)Lower moisture in the air
correlates with a lower dew point. A dew point of −4 °F (−20 °C) means that the air must be
cooled to −4 °F (20 °C) before moisture will condense out of the air. If the dew point is

−4 °F (−20 °C), the relative humidity in 250 °F (121 °C) air is very low, and this assists
moisture migration from pellets to air. The weight percent of moisture in plastic is given by:
Weight %=[ ( Sample wgt −Sample wgt Dry ) Sample wgt ]∗100 … Equation2.31
Five percent moisture means that each 100 kg of plastic resin actually weighs 95 kg, as it
contains 5 kg of water.
2.11.2 Factors Affecting the Drying Rate are as Follows:

 Air temperature surrounding the plastic chip: At higher temperatures, air can hold
more water, and the diffusion rate in the pellets is faster. (Pierrehumbert, 2007)
 Air dew point: Lower air dew point lowers the air moisture content and provides a
larger driving force for water migration from the plastic chip to the air. Combining
high temperature with a low dew point generates a greater pressure differential
between the moisture in the plastic and the air. (Pierrehumbert, 2007)
 Weight percent moisture in the plastic: Higher moisture content requires more time
to remove or reduce the moisture to acceptable concentration. (Masters, 1972.)
 Air flow around the pellets—Air flow around each plastic chip is critical to remove
wet air (air where moisture has already migrated from the plastic chip to the air) and
replace it with dry air. New dry air maintains a vapour pressure differential between
the air and the plastic chip surface. Air flow required for proper drying depends on
the plastic heat capacity and the air-drying temperature. (Heat capacity is the heat
required to raise a specific mass by one degree.) (Herring, 1995)
 Time and temperature required to dry various polymer systems vary greatly,
depending on the heat resistance, melting or softening point, and thermal
resistance of the plastic.
2.12 Factors That Affect Influence the Flowability of Bulk Solids
Many factors, both environmental and material-specific can have an effect on how bulk
solids flow. Among others, this includes:
2.12.1Cohesion and Adhesion Forces

Cohesion is the likelihood that a material will stick to itself, while adhesion is the likelihood
that a material will stick to something else, such as a hopper or bin wall. (Deomano, 2001)
2.12.2 Particle Size

Particle size will also have an impact on the flowability of a material, with powders typically
exhibiting poorer flow properties than coarse particles or agglomerates. (Ricker, 1988)
2.12.3 Particle Shape

The shape of particles can also have an effect on their ability to flow. Irregularly shaped
particles have a greater likelihood for surfaces to contact each other and are therefore more
likely to interlock. Conversely, spherical particles have very little opportunity for contact
between surfaces, promoting increased flowability. (L Ajdelsztajn, 2005)
2.12.4 Particle Density

The density of particles will also impact flow properties; particles with a higher density are
likely to flow better, as gravity has a greater influence on them. (L.X. Liu, 2008)
2.12.5 Moisture Content

Moisture content is significantly influential on the flowability of bulk solids. In general, as
the moisture content of a material increases, so too do its cohesion forces, causing the
material to stick to itself and cause issues such as caking. This is especially problematic
when working with hygroscopic materials, or materials that will absorb moisture from the
atmosphere, such as pot-ash. (Schulze, 2008)
2.12.6 Temperature
Temperature can also sometimes impact the flow of bulk solids, depending on the material.
2.12.7 Stagnant Residence Time

The length of time a material sits stagnant in storage or in a bin or hopper can also affect
flow properties. Forces such as pressure, chemical reactions, and more can cause particles to
bond together in undesirable ways, changing the flow properties of the material over time.
(G Kühner, 1993)
2.12.8 Angle of Repose

A material’s angle of repose is the angle at which material can be piled onto a horizontal
plane before it begins to slide against itself, and is a result of how the factors above combine
to influence how a material moves against itself. A material’s angle of repose is often used
as an indication of its flowability. (Burkalow, 2005)
2.13 Dehumidifier Selection
Industrial dehumidifiers remove excess moisture from the air in order to prevent rust,
mildew, and damage to electrical components. They also add heat to the area being treated,
further reducing the relative humidity of the surrounding air. (Watt, 2012)
2.13.1 Types of Dehumidifiers
There are four basic types of industrial dehumidifiers.
 Air cooled devices force moist air over a cold, dehumidifying coil. The moisture
condenses out of the air onto the coil and drains from the coil into a container.
 Water cooled dehumidifiers derive their name from how they remove excess
moisture by circulating cool water through a system of coils and pipes.
 Industrial dehumidifiers with solid desiccant rotors use ceramic wheels or disks
whose surface is covered with a specialized desiccant.
 Electric or gas-fired heaters are often used to remove the trapped condensate from
the desiccant.
Specifications
Selecting industrial dehumidifiers requires an analysis of product specifications.
 Air volume is the amount of air that passes through the dehumidifier. It is measured
as a volume per unit time, such as cubic feet per minute (ft3/min).
 Moisture removal is the amount of moisture that is removed from air that passes
through the dehumidifier. Like air volume, moisture volume is measured as a volume
per unit time, but typically in pounds per hour.
 Relative humidity is a measure of the amount of water in the air compared with the
amount of water that the air can hold at the time of measurement.

 Dew point temperature is the temperature at which air cools at constant pressure in
order to reach saturation. Typically, dew point is measured in degrees Fahrenheit (F).
2.14. Sizing Heater and Blower
In this section, the literature review on the design of the air system is explored.
2.14.1 Relationship between Airflow and Temperature

Hot air systems, at their most basic, combine two components—a stream of air supplied by a
blower/compressor and heat generated from a heating element to produce hot air.
Sometimes this is supplied from a single tool and at times from different tools to increase
the temperature of the stream of air and to use this air for a task. Understanding how air flow
and temperature relate to each other is helpful when choosing air and heat sources for a
system to ensure the system will be able to serve the purpose.
Raising the temperature of air requires energy; the amount of energy required depends on
the volume of air and the magnitude of the temperature increase. Air heaters are rated by
power in watts or kilowatts which specify the energy that the element is capable of applying
per unit of time
There is an inverse relationship between air flow and temperature. This becomes important
when choosing a heater and blower combination. Air heaters have a temperature-air flow
curve associated with them as shown below

Figure 2.10: Temperature Air Flow Curve
Each heater has a curve, with power kept constant. This curve shows the maximum
temperature the heater can attain at a given air flow. When designing a process heat system,
this curve tells us the air flow range at which the heater can maintain a target temperature. It
also indicates the minimum air flow required to prevent damage to the heater (i.e. the
airflow at which the maximum rated temperature for the heater is reached). This chart
allows us to size an appropriate blower for a heater in order to operate at our required
temperature or to size a heater (in kW) for a required air flow.
2.14.2Sizing Heater: Power Required to Raise Temperature of Air

A common mistake made by most designers when selecting a process heater is basing the
choice on temperature rating rather than power rating. Temperature can be important but is
generally. In order to raise any material from one temperature to another, energy must be
added the system. The calculation for this takes the form (in SI units):
QT =C m∗M m∗∆t … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.32
Where;
Qt =¿Heat to raise temperature; C m=¿ Latent heat of material; M m=¿ Mass of material; ∆ t=¿
change in temperature
2.14.3Sizing Heater: Power Required to Compensate Losses

For the sake of simplification, in this project a 10% loss of heat supplied is assumed,
therefore heat losses are calculated by equation 2.33 below.
Ql=0.1∗Qt … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation 2.33
Where;
Qt =¿Heat to raise temperature; C l=¿Heat losses
2.14.4 Sizing Blower: Power Required for Air Moving Equipment

To calculate the required horse power, the system resistance to gas flow must be known. A
total resistance of 25 cm of water at operating conditions for the drying chambers in series
with a heat exchanger that blows to the environment is a reasonable estimate for industrial
units. If the system sucks in ambient air through a filter in series with a heat exchanger and
drying chamber, the total resistance of the system will be 20 to 25 cm of water at operating
conditions.
The demand horsepower can be estimated empirically by equation 2.34 below:
( m3 /min )∗1
h p =vol flow rate out ∗system resistance ( cm water ) .. Equation2.34
K
Where,
K=27.5 For most commercial dryers
2.15 Shell and Tube Heat exchanger
A heat exchange can be used to recover some process waste heat into the system again for
preheating. In this section the literature review of a shell and tube heat exchanger is covered
For this design it is assumed that the system in consideration is a closed system. Hence the
law of conservation of mass and energy is followed. The amount of heat lost is equal to the
amount of heat gained. Heat transfer occurs from the hot air to the cool ambient air. From
this energy is assumed to be conserved within the system and losses to the surroundings and
frictional forces are taken to be negligible. Since energy is conserved the thermal energy
known as heat duty is equal on both shell and tube side. From this the temperature out of the
hot air can be calculated by equation 2.35 below:
duty
Heat =mtube∗C hotAir ( T ¿ −T out ) … … … … … … … … … … … … ….. Equation 2.35
Qloss
2.15.1 Material of Construction

Table 2.5: Shows different material of construction
Part of heat exchanger Material of construction

Shell Carbon
Tube Carbon
Baffles Galvanized coated stainless steel
Support Brackets gaskets Carbon
Tie rods and spacers Galvanized coated stainless steel
Fixed Head Carbon
Channel cover Carbon
Sealant Carbon graphite
Material of construction: Carbon Steel Carbon steel is an alloy comprising of Iron and
Carbon.
Suitability:
 Carbon steel is classified as a safe material of construction
 Can withstand a large temperature range
 Ideal when associated with a variety of materials and fluids
 It has a high durability
 Can withstand high stress and is unaffected by the changes in pressure to some
extent
 Ability to withstand harsh weather conditions
 Shock resistant • Does not encourage pests and insects
 Can be fairly cost effective
 Ductile and can be shaped within a certain range
 Available in various sizes, thickness and shapes on a commercial level
Material of construction: Galvanised coated Stainless Steel

Suitability:
 High corrosion resistance due to galvanisation
 Tough material
 Ductile
 Has a high strength capacity

 Low maintenance
 Material availability in production of tie rods and spacers
Material of construction: Carbon Graphite

Suitability:
 Acts as a good sealant
 High strength capacity
 Relatively high modulus regarding elasticity, thus can withstand a range of
deformations
 Rigidity along with strength
 Compatible with high pressures
 Ability to seal off components effectively
2.15.1Tube side data

Assumed outer and inner diameter in correlation to standard sizes *
For design purposes, assumed diameters are suggested in correlation to (J Coulson, 2002)
 Tube outer diameter = 20 mm
 Tube inner diameter = 18 mm
 Tube length = 3m
2.15.2 Tube Pitch

Tube Pitch is calculated by equation 2.35:
tube pitch=1.25∗tube outer diameter … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation2.35
2.15.3 Calculation of Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

Log mean temperature difference is calculated by equation 2.36 below:
( t 1−T 2 )−(t 2−T 1 )
T lm= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.36
( t 1−T 2 )
ln
(t 2−T 1 )
Where,
T lm=¿log mean temperature difference ;
T 1=¿Hot moist air inlet temperature

T 2=¿Hot moist air outlet temperature

t 1=¿Ambient air inlet temperature
t 2=¿Ambient air outlet temperature
2.15.4 Provisional area

Provisional area is made subject of formula using estimated overall heat transfer coefficient.
It is calculated by equation 2.37 below:
Q
Provisinal Area= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … ….. Equation2.37
U 0 ∆ T lm
Where:
Q=¿ heat duty of heat exchanger; U O =¿ estimated overall heat transfer coefficient;
∆ T lm=¿log mean temperature difference
2.15.5 Area of One Tube

Area of one tube is calculated by equation 2.38 below
Area=π∗tube outer diameter∗tube length … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.38
2.15.6 Number of Tubes

Number of tubes is calculated by equation 2.39 below
Provisional Area
number of tubes= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . Equation2.39
Area of OneTube
2.15.7 Number of tubes per pass

Number of tubes per pass is calculated by equation 2.40 below:
Total Number of Tubes
Number of tubes per pass= … … … … … … Equation2.40
Total Number of passes
2.15.8 Tube Cross Sectional Area

Tube cross sectional area is calculated by equation 2.41 below:
2
π∗Inner tube dia
Tube cross sectional area= … … … … … … … … . Equation2.41
4
2.15.9 Tube Cross Sectional Area per Pass

Cross sectional area per pass is calculated by equation 2.42 below:

area∗Nof tubes
Cross sectional area / pass=cross sectional .. Equation2.42
Nof passes
2.15.10 Tube side velocity

Tube side air velocity is calculated by equation 2.43 below
mass flow rate
Tube side air velocity= … … … … … … Equation2.43
density∗area per pass
2.15.11 Bundle diameter

Bundle diameter is calculated by equation 2.44 below
Bundle dia=Tube outside dia∗¿
Constants for 2 tube pass square pitch are used.
Figure 2.11: Showing Constant Used to Calculate Bundle Diameter
2.15.12 Shell Inner Diameter

Shell Inner Diameter=bundle diameter +bundle shell clearance

Figure 2.12: Shows Approximate Bundle Diameter for Selected Heat Exchanger
For the fixed heat exchanger the bundle diameter is approximately 0.2 m the bundle-shell
clearance is assumed to be 10 mm.
Table 2.6: Shows shell wall thickness for different materials and shell diameter
Nominal Shell Carbon Steel Alloy steel

Diameter Pipe Plate
150 7.1 _ 3.2
200-300 9.3 _ 3.2
330-580 9.5 7.9 3.2
2.15.13 Baffle Spacing and Shell Side Velocity:

Baffle spacing: according to (J Coulson, 2002) the baffle spacing can be 0.2 to 1 of the shell
inner diameter. Baffle spacing is calculated by equation 2.45 below:
Baffle spacing=shell inner diameter∗0.5 … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.45

2.15.14 Volumetric Flow rate – Shell Side

Volumetric flow rate is calculated by equation 2.46 below
mass flow rate
Volumetric flow rate= … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 2.46
density
2.15.15 Heat Transfer Area on Shell Side

Heat transfer area on shell side is calculated by equation 2.47 below
Area= ( tube pitch−tube

tube pitch
dia
)∗shell inner dia∗baffle space … .. Equation 2.47
2.15.16 Shell Side Velocity
Shell side velocity is calculated by equation 2.48 below:
Volumetric flow rate
Velocity= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation2.48
area
2.15.17 Number of Baffles

Number of baffles is calculated by equation 2.49 below:
Tube length
Number of buffles= … … … … … … … … … … … … … .. Equation 2.49
buffle spacing

CHAPTER 3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter accounts for the practical “how” of the research concerning the project. More
specifically, it’s about how the author systematically designed a study to ensure valid and
reliable results that address the project aims and objectives. It covers how the author went
about deciding:
 What data to collect
 Who to collect it from (sampling design)
 How to collect it (data collection methods)
 How to analyze it (data analysis methods)
The chapter explains not just what methodological choices were made, but also
explains why they were made. In other words, the methodology chapter should justifies the
design choices, by showing that the chosen methods and techniques are the best fit for the
research aims and objectives, and will provide valid and reliable results.
3.2 Design Process
The Pahl and Beitz design process was used in this project in order to come up with
suitable solution to the problem at hand. The design process comprises of sequential
phases, (Pahl & Beitz, 1996), which are:
 Clarification of the task: involves collection of information on the design

requirements and the constraints and describing these.
 Conceptual design: involves establishment of the functions to be included in the
design, and identification and development of suitable solutions.
 Embodiment design: conceptual solution was developed in more detail, problems
were resolved and weak aspects eliminated.
 Detail design: in which the dimensions, tolerances, materials and form of individual
components of the design were specified in detail for subsequent manufacture.

3.3 Task Clarification
In this phase the task to be done was clarified. This phase included determination of the
specifications and requirements of the chosen design. This stage looked at the process of
plastic drying during recycling and why it has to be done, (Cohen, 2001). The information
relating to the various plastic drying mechanisms and control of parameters in coming up
with the desired goal was collected. Also, the Information about the overall design
requirements and constraints were collected. The real need of the research was laid out and
the aims and objectives which the plastic drying process needed to achieve were defined,
(Cohen, 2001). In this phase, specifications of the plastic drying process including the
mechanical and control system were clearly defined as well.
3.4 Conceptual Design
This conceptual design phase determined the principal solution. In this phase there was
establishment of essential problems, functional structures, suitable working principles and
combining them into a working concept. Possible design concepts and control systems were
generated in order to solve the problem. In this phase the various fluid atomizing
mechanisms consisting of rotating disk, nozzle, and rotating blades were taken as possible
concepts of fluid atomization. (Pahl & Beitz, 1996) Diagrammatic representations of the
possible developed concepts were produced for the possible outcomes. The generated
possible concepts were analyzed in order to obtain the most suitable concept and
refinements were done to the concepts. In the selection some design attributes were
assessed and they included:
 System stability  User friendliness
 System working parameters  Safety and Ergonomics
 Integration ability  Initial cost
3.5 Embodiment of Design
Embodiment design is a separate phase which bridges the gap between the highly abstract,
concept design and the concrete, detail design phase. Pahl and Beitz focus on what the
components and subsystems are and what their function will be, how the pieces will

connect together and with the environment, on the basic geometry of the different pieces
and how they will be arranged according to location, grouping and orientation.
Furthermore, they identify the production process, solutions to auxiliary functions and use
analysis-synthesis iterations to better the layout for a given concept. Pahl and Beitz believe
that by setting down a separate embodiment design phase, designers can increase their
chances of success because they focus attention on functional efficiency, economy and
safety. It was in this phase that the chosen concepts were developed and weak areas and
aspects were eliminated. (Cohen, 2001) In this stage the final chosen concept was adopted
instead of the other possible solutions following a 2-step selection criterion which
considered various properties and specifications as outlined in the next chapter. This way
improved the design in terms of application, strength and ergonomics.
3.6 Detailed Design
In the Detail phase, a design that meets the functional requirement to be more specific
evolves. It led to a design prepared for production where the system, sub-system structure,
part structure and all the parts, form dimensions and tolerances, the material and surface
properties of all the individual parts are finally specified, and all the drawing and production
documents are produced (Pahl G, 1996). Design factors were taken into consideration to
make sure the final product satisfies the desired goal and solved the effective plastic drying
problem, (Conte E, 2011). Working drawings and design characteristics was done.
3.7 Justification of the Pahl and Beitz Design Process
The Pahl and Beitz combines’ description of task and product planning which gives a more
detailed list of requirements unlike with other design processes like the Pugh design
process. In the conceptual design, the Pahl and Beitz focus on setting functional structures
and create system's overall function highlighting vital inputs and outputs, (Pahl & Beitz,
1996). This reduces time and costs as sub-systems can be viewed separately. This makes
the process superior in comparison with the Pugh method. The Pahl and Beitz have a
separate embodiment of design which gives focus on the task of the sub-systems and how it
will be coordinated, (Cohen, 2001). This increases probability of success as a result of
emphasizing on functional efficiency safety and economy. In the last stage, detailed design,
it is easy to manufacture or assemble the parts since the embodiment of design caters for

these and other aspects. Basically, the Pahl and Beitz made it easy to produce the control
system and also provided a low cost and reduced time to completion of the project as a
whole.
3.8 Research Method
This section summarizes the methods employed by the author. Research can be defined as
the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish
facts and reach new conclusions, (A Mackey, 2015). The section clearly outlines the
research problem, the research approach and design, data collection techniques and data
sources that were employed by the author. The study population size and data presentation
and analysis of the research that was carried out are also elaborated.
3.9 Research Problem
The traditional plastic drying mechanisms used in society are space wasting, labour
intensive, prone to bad weather, and cause quality of plastic to be compromised due to direct
sun radiation. The combination of mechanisms and parameters used by small scale plastic
recyclers to dry washed rigid plastic are not optimum for effective drying to take place.
Effective drying can only be achieved when the drying process is designed up to standard
and the critical parameters are at optimum levels as determined through calculation.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the optimum parameters for effective drying.
These parameters include temperature, humidity, airflow, plastic drying time and initial
moisture content of rigid plastic to be dried.
3.10 Research Approach and Design
The two main research approaches used in conducting and controlling the research are
qualitative and quantitative approaches.
 Qualitative Research
Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text,
video, audio, interviews or questionnaires) to understand concepts, opinions, or
experiences of people involved with the problem. It can be used to gather in-depth
insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research. The data obtained through
the interview can be analyzed through experimentation. This type of analysis brought

completeness and confirmation of the required parameters. It brought forth a balance

between the data collection techniques.
 Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is a study that pertains to obtaining and analyzing data in a

manner that is countable. Quantitative research allows the researcher to obtain
statistics from collected data. Research is a progressive study that involves
collecting, analysis, and interpreting the data. In this method of research, empirical
methods are used to validate certain theories. In this project, there are parameters
that are known to optimize the drying process like the speed of rotation and the
temperature of drying air. The parameters will be determined through calculation.
3.11 Sources of Data
Both primary and secondary sources of data were used in this project so that accurate and
objective findings are established.
 Primary Data
Primary data is an original and unique data, which is directly collected by

the researcher from a source such as observations, surveys, questionnaires, case studies and
interviews according to his requirements (P Runeson, 2009). Interviews and questionnaires
were used to gather primary data. Mega Pak Zimbabwe Polycycling factory coordinator was
interviewed by the author and questionnaires were given to the operators of the same
factory.
 Secondary Data
Data that was not collected by the author from first-hand sources is called secondary data,
(Driscoll & Brizee, 2017). Studies, surveys, or experiments that were carried out by other
people in the past were used to gather secondary data and give a starting point of research.
Secondary data worked as a baseline for the primary gathering step. Document analysis of
Mega Pak Polycycling factory reports were used to gather information and data. Related
websites were frequently visited to collect secondary data.
3.12 Data Collection Techniques

Due to Covid 19 constraints, the author was restricted to over the phone interviews for data
collection.Over the phone interviews were conducted by the author. These were done to the
Mega-Pak polycycling factory personnel, maintenance team and factory management. Table
1 shows the population size and the sample size interviewed by the author. Covid 19
pandemic complicated data collection and hence restricted the author to over the phone
interviews .The interviews were casual and the interviewees were excited to be part
of the solution. The author shot in a view to acquire information specific to the challenges
being faced in drying quantity and ideas on how a new system should be developed in a way
that improves throughput, reduces stoppages and ultimately dries the washed plastic to the
desired quality.
Table 3.1: Outlining number of Interviews conducted
Mega Pak Zimbabwe (Polycycling Factory)Team

Sample Frame Population Sample size
Poly-cycling operators and 7 2
factory management
Polycycling Maintenance team 5 2
Total 12 4
Some of the questions included:

 What are your needs and requirements pertaining to this project design?
 Which features do you think are most important on the rigid plastic dryer?
 What equipment do you currently use for drying plastic?
 How much plastic do you usually dry in a shift?
 Are there any other constraints with your existing plastic drying methods?
Some of the important features chosen by the focus group:

 Size and capacity of the rigid plastic dryer.
 Mechanism of operation.
 Cost
 Robustness
 Level of Automation

Customer needs were gathered and they fall into three categories which are:
 The engineering needs
 The product user needs
 Product producer needs
3.13 Concept Generation Methodology
Figure is a summary of the concept generation methodology used in coming up with

concepts in chapter 4.
3.13.1 Clarification of Problem

Inputs from the analysis of customer needs and functional specifications were used to come
up with sub-problems of the main problem, in order to clarify the problem. The main
problem of the project is to dry washed rigid plastic chipped material as effectively as
possible. The subsystems which have possibilities of different designs consist of the
dewatering system, atomizing system, air heating and dehumidification system as well as
the air filtration system of the machine. Figure 3.2 shows a black box which gives a
decomposition of the overall problem which is to effectively rigid plastic. The overall
problem is further broken down into sub problems as shown in Figure 3.1. The reason why
this decomposition was done is to focus on the simpler sub problems first as they are easy to
work with.

Clarify the Problem

Understanding
Problem decomposition
Focus on critical sub-problems
Sub-problems
2. Search Externally 3. Search Internally

Lead users Individual
Experts Group
Patents
Literature
Benchmarking
New Concepts
Existing Concepts
4. Explore systematically
Classification tree
Combination table
Integrated Solutions
5. Reflect on the solutions and the process

Constructive feedback
Figure3.0.1: Showing the Problem decomposition process
Figure 3.0.2: Showing Black Box

Rotary kinetic Energy

Energy Transfer kinetic Energy to feed to atomize water on plastic chip
Wet plastic
Air
Transfer wet plastic to Drying chamber

Atomize Apply
water on plastic to very fine Heated
dropletsAir
in to fine Dried
Drying atomized
Chamber wate
plastic
Dehumidify and Heat Air Transfer Heated Air to atomized water in Drying Chamber
Figure 3.3: Showing Problem Decomposition into Sub-Functions
3.13.2 Searching Externally

The author did external searches to lead users through patent searches and literature
searches. In the design of a rigid plastic dryer, the author read through Aero-tech Company
booklets. Aero-tech is a manufacturer of spray dryers.
3.13.3 Searching Internally

The author applied personal ingenuity as well as creativity to come up with a list of concepts
that could solve the problem. All ideas were entertained including those that seemed

undoable. These ideas were summarized in sketched drawings. Figure 8 shows pie chat with
results obtained from searching internally by the author.
Recycled rigid plastic Dryer weightened cri-

teria
4%
10% 6%
cost 6%
15% efficiency 40,5%
durability 24,8%
health 15%
40% portability 3,8%
market 9,9%
25%
Figure 3.4: Showing Internal search results
3.3.4 Exploring Systematically

The author came up with a number of concepts from internal and external searches. The
complexity and large number of concepts generated are very tedious to work through. The
author employed two tools to handle this complexity. The concept combination table as well
as the concept classification tree were used and these are shown in Table 3.2 and Figure 3.5
respectively. The concept classification tree broke the solutions into categories unrelated to
each other whilst the combination table was used to select possible fragments.

Impact force Surface

atomizes waterarea of water increase
particles
Convert electrical energy toTransfer
rotation rotational kinetic
of motor attached Energy to wet
to disk rigid plastic materialinto Fine pa
Electrical EnergyCollect Solar Thermal Energy

Transfer Thermal Energy to Air
Solar Energy
Figure 3.4 Atomization Sub-Problem
Table 3.2 Concept Combination Table
Transfer plastic Atomization of Flow mechanism to Shell shape

chipped material to water to very fine Transfer Thermal
Drying Chamber droplets Energy to drying
chamber
Pump Single fluid pressure Co-current Dome shape
nozzle
Blower / fan Pneumatic atomizer Counter current Oval shape
Gravity Rotary (spinning Mixed flow Cylindrical
disk)
 Transfer plastic chips to Drying Chamber
Plastic chips coming from the washing stage can be introduced to the drying chamber by a
blower or by force of gravity. The main aim is to increase flow-ability and avoid clogging of
the system as well as feeding the material at the exact point where it needs to be while using
minimum energy.
 Transfer Thermal Energy to Air

Hot and dry Air can be transferred from the combustor to the drying chamber by use of
pumps, blowers or fans.
3.5 Quality Function Deployment QFD
In order to ensure quality and customer satisfaction are guaranteed, a QFD was done to
translate the consumer’s demands into design targets and quality assurance points to be used
during design. The voice of the customer (stated and unstated requirements) were
summarized in a QFD

Figure 3.5: House of Quality for the recycled rigid plastic Dryer
3.6 Value Engineering
Value Engineering is a systematic and organized approach to providing the necessary

functions in a project at the lowest cost. Value engineering promotes the substitution of
materials with less expensive alternatives, without sacrificing functionality. It is focused
solely on the functions of various components and materials, rather than their physical
attributes. It is also called value analysis and is calculated by equation 3.1 below:
function
value= … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Equation 3.1
cost
From the equation above, it can be seen that an increase in function or a decrease in the cost
results in the overall increase of value.
Value Engineering is the review of new or existing products during the design phase to
reduce costs and increase functionality in order to increase the value of the product, (Kiran,
2020).The value of an item is defined as the most cost effective way of producing an item
without taking away from its purpose.
3.7 Root Cause Analysis
Root cause analysis is an approach for identifying the underlying causes of for an incident
so that the most effective solutions can be identified and implemented, (OSHA, 2019). It is
typically used when something goes badly, but can also be used when something goes well.
Within an organization, problem solving, incident investigation and root cause analysis are
all fundamentally connected by three basic questions:
 What’s the problem?
Define the problem by its impact to overall goals.

 Why did it happen?
Analyze the causes; break the problem down into a visual map that provides a thorough
explanation revealing all the causes required to produce the problem.
 What will be done to prevent it from happening again?

Prevent or mitigate any negative impact to the goals by selecting the best solutions.
Effective solutions should make a change to how people execute work process.
3.8 Fishbone Diagram
A fishbone diagram is also known as a cause and effect diagram or Ishikawa diagram. It is a
visualization tool for categorizing the potential causes of a problem in order to find the root
causes, (DD Shinde, 2018 ). Doctor Kaoru Ishikawa, a Japanese quality control officer is
credited with inventing the fishbone diagram to help employees avoid solutions that merely
address the symptoms of a much larger problem.
The fishbone diagram makes a distinction between cause and result. On the right hand side
of the fishbone diagram the problems are described and on the left hand side the possible
root causes are denominated, (A Shaygan, 2019). The root causes are subdivided into 4
categories which are:
People
This concerns all causes that are created by human actions; is there good communication, do
people understand their assignments, and are employees sufficiently involved, experienced
and trained, (A Shaygan, 2019)?
Machines
This concerns causes related to the functioning of machines, tools, installations and
computers. Have the correct machines been used, are the machines safe enough, do the
machines meet the requirements, are they reliable, (A Shaygan, 2019)?
Materials
There may be problems with the materials, raw materials and consumables and semi-
finished products. What is the quality, how much do we need, are the materials resistant to
external influences and how long will they last?
Methods
This category investigates whether possible causes can be found in the work method. Are
the work processes adequate, how are the co-operative arrangements organized, how do
employees and departments communicate with each other?
Fishbone diagrams are used in the “analyze” phase of Six Sigma’s DMAIC (define,
measure, analyze, improve, control) approach.

Figure 3.4: Showing Fish bone analysis for contaminated material
The research and methods discussed in this chapter were used to develop an easy to operate
system those parameters can easily be kept at optimum levels.

CHAPTER 4-CONCEPT GENERATION AND

CONCEPT SELECTION
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter the author comes up with different designs to the solution for the washed
rigid plastic chips drying problem. Best mechanisms to solve various sub problems were
also selected based on different criteria in a systematic manner. A general outline of
conceptual design is covered before going into the actual concept generation and selection.
Alternative concepts will be generated and weighed against each other in terms of
advantages and disadvantages. The selected concept will be further developed in more detail
in chapter five. The generation of the concepts will be based on the quality function
deployment, (Simpson, 2000).
4.2 Concept Generation
In this section, concepts with diverse working principles, operating mechanisms and
building components are generated. These concepts are developed in response to problems
associated with drying rigid plastic during recycling as was discussed in chapter one. The
developed concepts are of different orientations and different material hence the costs
associated with each will also be different. It is, however, important to note that cost is not
the only criteria to be used in selection, though very important. Customer needs and
technical needs will also be used as basis of comparison between developed concepts. In the
Figure 10 below is a hierarchy chart to illustrate the problem decomposition of the
automated solar maize dryer as according to, (K Honkisz, 2018 ).

Rigid plastic
chips Dryer
concept criteria
cost health efficiency market durability portability
manufacturing environmental product strenght of

size plastic dryer size
cost concern availability drying system
time of safety of end comply with its durability of end ease of

durability
manufacturing product purpose product transportation
amount of maturity
ease of safety of plastic dried per durability of
ease of use
manufacturing machine use hour machine
machine
machine use cost
reliabilty
competition
payback time
ease of machine
mantanance
parts availability
complexity
competitive
machine weight
advantage
ease of repair
Figure 4.1: Showing Organization chart
4.2 Concept One- Open Orientation
The first concept the author proposed in the design of a rigid plastic chip material dryer is
one that employs the concept of atomization and hot dry air to dry the wet plastic material in
an open orientation setup. The drying medium is hot dry air pumped into the chamber as
shown in the figure 12 below.

Figure 4.2: Showing Concept 1- Open orientation with no air Preheating
Ambient air is drawn into the system via a filter that rids it of pollutants before it passes
through a heater. The heater raises the temperature of the air to a certain desired temperature
depending on the type of rigid plastic material to be dried. The dry hot air is then pumped
into the drying chamber at controlled temperature and pressure. Meanwhile, wet rigid crate
plastic material is introduced into the drying chamber through a pipe driven by force of
gravity. The pipe directs the wet material towards an atomiser. The atomiser in the concept
uses the mechanism of a motor driven disk spinning in an axis perpendicular to the direction
of feed material at a very high speed. When the wet material touches the surface of the
spinning disk, it is propelled away at the instantaneous velocity equal to that at the periphery
of the spinning disk. Due to this impact force, the water on the surface of each plastic chip is
broken into very fine droplets whose size is indirectly proportional to the rotational speed of
the spinning disk. On contact with incoming hot dry air, the projectiles of droplets are
quickly absorbed as vapour. By time the plastic chips reach the bottom of the drying
chamber, they would be dry already and fall into the primary collection unit. After absorbing

moisture, the wet heavy air drops towards the bottom of the chamber and is sucked out into
a cyclone. Some of the heavy plastic chips that get sucked into the cyclone then fall down
into the secondary collection unit. The hot hoist air is then expelled into the environment.
The systems suck in fresh air from the environment continuously and expel wet hot air
continuously as well.
The advantages of concept one is as follows:

 Cheap to build as it has less components
 Ease to install and maintain due to less moving components
The disadvantages of concept one is:

 System requires a lot of space in the plant
 Need frequent servicing of chamber inner lining walls
 Not energy efficient as it doesn’t recycle hot air but rather expels it to environment
 Air filter need servicing on regular basis
4.3 Concept two- Closed Orientation
The second concept the author proposed in the design of a rigid plastic chip material dryer is
an open orientation setup. The drying medium is hot dry air pumped into the chamber as
shown in the figure 4.3 below.

Figure 4.3: Showing Concept 2 Closed orientation with no air preheating
Ambient air is drawn into the system via a filter that rids it of pollutants before it passes
through a heater. The heater raises the temperature of the air to a certain desired temperature
depending on the type of rigid plastic material to be dried. The dry hot air is then pumped
into the drying chamber at controlled temperature and pressure. Meanwhile, wet rigid crate
plastic material is introduced into the drying chamber through a pipe driven by force of
gravity. The pipe directs the wet material towards an atomiser. The atomiser in the concept
uses the mechanism of a motor driven disk spinning in an axis perpendicular to the direction
of feed material at a very high speed. When the wet material touches the surface of the
spinning disk, it is propelled away at the instantaneous velocity equal to that at the periphery
of the spinning disk. Due to this impact force, the water on the surface of each plastic chip is
broken into very fine droplets whose size is indirectly proportional to the rotational speed of
the spinning disk. On contact with incoming hot dry air, the projectiles of droplets are
quickly absorbed as vapour. By time the plastic chips reach the bottom of the drying
chamber, they would be dry already and fall into the primary collection unit. After absorbing
moisture, the wet heavy air drops towards the bottom of the chamber and is sucked out into

a cyclone. Some of the heavy plastic chips that get sucked into the cyclone then fall down
into the secondary collection unit. The hot moist air is then passed through a condenser to
remove the water from the air. The warm dry air is then drawn to the heater where it is
heated again to desired temperatures.
4.4 Concept three- Closed Orientation with Air Preheating
The third concept the author proposed in the design of a rigid plastic chip material dryer is
a closed orientation setup like in the second concept. However, in this concept, the ambient
air is preheated in a heat exchanger using heat from the hot moist air coming out of the
cyclone before it reaches the condenser. The drying medium is hot dry air pumped into the
chamber as shown in the figure 4.4 below.
Figure 4.4: Showing Concept 3: Closed system with air preheating
4.4 Concept Four- Open Orientation with Air Preheating without

Condenser or Cyclone
The fourth concept the author proposed in the design of a rigid plastic chip material dryer is

an open orientation setup. The ambient air is preheated in a heat exchanger using heat from
the hot moist air coming out of the dryer. The hot moist air is then expelled into the
environment after passing through the heat exchanger. This concept also doesn’t use a
cyclone for collection of material. A blower is also used to pump in material from a bin into
the dryer. The drying medium is hot dry air pumped into the chamber as shown in the figure
4.5 below.
Figure 4.5: Showing Concept 4: pen System with air preheating
4.5 Concept Selection
This section focuses on concept selection of the concepts generated in the previous section.
It is divided into two major parts; concept screening and concept scoring. In concept
selection the generated concepts are evaluated based on customer needs and other criteria.
The concepts are compared in terms of their strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities
associated with each. After screening, a few of the concepts remain and are put to further
investigation, detesting and development. (Simmons, Maguire, & Phelps, 2009) and (Ulrich
& Eppinger, 2016). The following are the various methods that can be used for choosing a
concept:

 External decision: Concepts selection is done on the basis of the voice of the
customer, client, and some other external entity.
 Product Champion: an influential and knowledgeable member of the product
development team chooses a concept based on personal preference and experience. It
is subjective in nature.
 Intuition: here the concept is chosen by the feeling i.e. just feeling the concept is ok,
it just seems better. This method is very subjective and non technical.
 Multi-voting: each member of the development team votes and the concepts with
highest votes are the selected. It is still subjective but often satisfies more people
 Web-based survey: this is by using an online survey tool, whereby each concept is
rated by many people, and by this the one with the most rating is chosen.
 Pros and Cons: a list of advantages and disadvantages of each concept is made and
compare them to find the best concepts.
 Prototype and test: here the prototype is being built and then several tests are made
on the prototypes, producing data results which are then used for the c0oncept
selection.
 Decision Matrices: the team rates each concept against some pre-specified selection
criteria, by which may be weighted.
In this chapter, the concept selection is based on Decision Matrices. The concept selection
steps according to (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2016) are:
 Prepare the selection Matrix
 Rate the concepts
 Rank the concepts
 Combine and improve the concepts
 Select one or more concepts
 Reflect on the result and the process
Appendix B is a level of performance table used while doing the concept screening and
concept scoring of this project.
4.6 Concept Screening

This is based on a method developed by Stuart Pugh in 1980s. Table 4.1 and Appendix P
show the narrowing of concepts to remain with a few. This is done through Pugh’s matrix
and using concept three as our reference concepts.
Table 4.1: The Concept Rating Key for the Screening Process
Concept rating Explanation
0 Concept 1 is similar than 3 for the given screening criteria
+ Concept 1 is better than 3 for the given screening criteria
Concept 1 is worse than 3 for the given screening criteria

-
A conclusion to go on and do concept 3 and develop it further was made.
4.7 Concept Scoring
The relative importance of each selection criterion is weighed and there by focusing on more
refined comparisons with respect to each criterion. Using concept 4 as our reference concept
is being compared against concept 3. Appendix D shows the complete concept scoring.
Table 4.2: Outlining Rating for Concept Scoring Criterion
Rating score Relative Performance

1 – Much worse than reference
2 – Worse than reference
3 – Same as reference
4 – Better than reference
5 – Much better than reference
4.8 Product Decomposition
Here the developed concept is being broken down into small components in which it is
going to be designed this helps to make it faster to understand the design at its design stage.
The rigid plastic drier is being broken down into sub-problems to be solved each separately
and then combined to give a fully functional dryer. Below is a product decomposition of a

rigid plastic dryer. The following are the benefits of structural decomposition; process helps
clarify on all design components; decomposition makes the detail design process easy as all
required components are specified; reduces time taken on detail design, hence faster product
development and less lead time.
Pipe work
blowing fan
Air treatment
Preheater
exchanger
heater
Rotating disk
plate
Atomizer
Plastic Dryer
Concept Criteria
holding axil
Dome Stainless
Steel Chamber
Drying Chamber
supporting
structure
Material
Blower
Handling
Figure 4.6: Showing Structural Decomposition of the Chosen Design Concept
4.9 Chosen Concept
The chosen concept is an open system which applies heat integration to preheat ambient air
using exhaust air from the system as shown in figure 4.7 below:

Figure 4.7: Showing the Chosen Concept
In this chapter, the final concept was chosen and recommended for further development.
The concept that was chosen makes use of a rotating disk atomizer to break water particles
on the surface of plastic material into very fine droplets that would then be treated with hot
dry air to dry the material. The exhaust air would be used to preheat ambient air coming into
the system. The exhaust air would also be dehumidified, reheated and recycled into the
system again to cut heating cost and heating time. The final concept was chosen from
several other concepts after exposing them to different judgments in order to eliminate those
not satisfying selection criterions.

CHAPTER 5- DETAIL DESIGN

5.1 Introduction
In this chapter, calculations are done to determine size of materials and components to
realize a detailed design of the chosen concept. The calculations will also help to size
components that are to be outsourced from vendors. The main goal of this chapter is to
determine specifications of components and materials to be used in the project. This will
involve material selection and the justification thereof.
5.2 Material Selection
Table 9 is a summary of the material selections that were made and the justification thereof.
Table 5.1: Summarizing Material Selection
Part Material choice Justification

Chamber Shell Stainless steel  Corrosion resistant
outer material  Easy to machine
 Heat resistant
 Potential gradient with other parts of the
chamber
Bolts and nuts Stainless steel  Corrosion resistant

 Easy to machine
 Heat resistant
chamber
Rotary atomizer Stainless steel  Easy to machine

 Corrosion resistant
 Heat resistant
chamber

Cladding Stainless steel  Corrosion resistant

 Heat resistant
chamber
Insulation Mineral wool  Cheap

 Heat loss prevention
 Noise insulation
Fan blade Polypropylene  Corrosion resistance

 optimum airflow characteristics
 Lightweight and quiet
 Prolongs the life of motors and bearings
Air supply Piping Semi- Rigid metal  Cheap

ducts (reinforced  Heat resistant
with aluminium)
 Corrosion resistant
 Flexible for tight workspaces
 Smooth, avoid material accumulation
5.3 Load Information to be Considered in Design
Assume the following load conditions for the design. The load information is exaggerated
from the actual operating conditions so as to design a dryer that is robust enough to handle
varying loads.
Table 5.2: Summarizing Load Information for Design
Load component Value and unit

Moisture in final product 5%
Solids in feed 50%

Ambient relative humidity 10%

Ambient temperature 20 °C
Residence time in dryer 5 seconds
Specific heat of solid 1330 to 2400 j/kg
Volume mean particle diameter 100µm
Air inlet temperature 200 °C
Air outlet temperature 80 °C
Water evaporation rate 490kg/hr
Feed rate 1220 kg/hr
Solid product rate 730 kg/hr
Heat losses 10%
5.4 Design of Rotary Atomizer
A rotary atomizer with vanes was selected for the following reasons
 Greater reliability and flexibility
 Little wear of atomizing disk, atomizing characteristics are not affected by possible
wear of disk
 Wide capacity range change without change in atomizing characteristics
 Little risk of clogging
 Easy of automation and control
5.4.1 Calculations for Rotary Atomizer

For industrial rotary atomizer, Herring-Marshall equation can be used to predict parameter
values. The basic parameter values are droplet size D vm microns, feed rate ML kg/min, height
of vanes h cm, rotation speed N rpm, diameter of wheel d cm, number of vanes n. The
equation is given equation 2.1:
0.24
K (M L )
Dvm = 0.83 0.12
(Nd) nh
The constant K for industrial dryers of large capacity is about 29.4*10 4. This correlation is
valid over the following ranges of parameters:

Table 5.3: Outlining Range of Operation Parameters
Variable Range of parameters

Wheel diameter(cm) 19 – 23
Wheel speed rpm 10000- 18000
Mp = liquid loading on vane 0.9- 5.4
Where liquid loading on vane is calculated by equation 2.2

ML
M p=
n∗h
Iterative calculations to determine reasonable values for d, n, h which result in 0.9<Mp< 5.4
were made. The following set of design parameters in table 11 is one of the numerous
possible combination suitable for the specified duty and were considered by the author in
design
Table 5.4: Summarizing Design Values for Wheel
Design parameter Parameter value

Wheel diameter 18
Wheel speed 18500rpm
Height of vanes 1.9cm
Number of vanes 10
5.4.2 Power Consumption of Rotary Atomizer

For power consumption of rotary atomiser use equation 2.3:
P=( 1.02∗10−8 )∗F∗(N∗d)2
Where:
 F = feed rate = 20kg/min
 N = Peripheral rotational speed = 18500rpm
 D = diameter of disk atomizer = 18cm
 P = power consumption in horse power
Equation yields:
Power consumption of atomizer, P = 14.744hp

5.5 Designing Spray Drying Chamber
Figure 5.1: Showing Spray Chamber Inputs and Outputs
Where:
Table5.5 Summarizing Parameter Name and Values
Parameter name Parameter value

Gs Heated gas flow rate kg/hour
Ls Solid flow rate in kg/hr
X1 Moisture content in entering solid(kg moisture/kg solid)
X2 Moisture content in exiting solid(kg moisture/kg solid)
Y1 Humidity of entering air (kg moisture/kg air)
Y2 Humidity of leaving air (kg moisture/kg air)
T1 Temperature inlet of air
T2 Temperature outlet of air
t1 Temperature inlet of solids
t2 Temperature outlet of solids
H1 Enthalpy of entering dry air kj/kg
H2 Enthalpy of exit wet air kj/kg
HL1 Enthalpy of entering solids kj/kg
HL2 Enthalpy of exiting solids kj/kg
5.5.1 Spray Chamber Shape Determination

A spray chamber with a dome shaped top will be designed to comply with environmental
recommendations on design of spray dryer sells. A conical bottom is also chosen to allow
for product discharge by gravity alone.
5.5.2 Spray Chamber Calculations

Moisture balance equation use equation 2.4:
M S (W S 1−W S 2 )=Ga (H 2 −H 1)
Enthalpy balance equation use equation 2.5:
G0 Q0 + M S QS 1=G a Qa 1 + M S QS 2+Q2
Where:
Qs 1=C ds ∆ T + W s 1 c w Δ T
Qa=C s ( ∆ T ) + Hλ
Where:
Qs1 and Qa are enthalpies of feed and air respectively
Qa1 =52.0 kcal/kg, Qa2 =23.0 + 592H2
Qs1 =89.0 kcal/kg, Qs2 =35.0 kcal/kg
Substituting these values in equation 5.4 and 5.5, two simultaneous equations for Ga and H2
are obtained.
Ga = 28282 kg/hr and
H2 = 0.044 kJ/kg
Heat load = 1.58 *106 kcal/hr from equation 5.5
If operation is adiabatic (No heat loss), then G a = 22843 kg/hr and H2 = 0.053 kJ/kg of dry
air.
5.5.3Height of Chamber
Drying chambers are designed to handle an air volume containing sufficient heat for drying
the spray droplets and to provide an air residence time sufficient for material to be dried to
sufficient moisture content. Residence times ranging from 3 to 50 seconds are found in
commercial dryers.
Volumetric flow rate use equation 2.8:

G a V B 8.73 m3
V= =
3600 sec
Average velocity of dry air use equation 2.9:
4
v= 2
∗V =0.369 m/sec
πd
Residence time use equation 2.10:
t d=50
√ W S1
10
=10 sec
Height required use equation 2.11:

height =v∗t d=3.69 m
Humid Volume use equation 2.12:
( )( )
1 Y T g +273.15
Humid volume ( V )=8315∗ + ∗
Ma M w P
 Ma = Molecular wt of air = 29g/mol

 Mw = molecular wt of water = 18g/mol
 Tg = Temperature of gas in °C
 P = pressure on N/m2
 Y = Humidity of air in kg of moisture/ kg of dry air
 Humid volume:
 Inlet (Vin) = .225 m3/kg dry air
 Outlet (Vout) = 1.1493 m3/kg dry air
 Vavg = (Vin + Vout)/2 = 1.1859 m3/kg dry air
Droplet diameter assume to be 100 microns
5.5.4 Operating Velocities Calculations

The operating velocity in a non dusting spray dryer is taken as two times the settling
velocity of the drop.
Settling velocity (Vs) use equation 2.13:
2
D p ( ρ p− ρf )g
V S=
18 μ
Where:

D p=¿ Drop diameter in m

ῥ p =¿ Droplet density in kg/m3
ῥ f =¿ air density at average temperature in kg/m3
µ=¿ Viscosity of air at average temperature
V s =¿settling velocity
g=¿Acceleration due to gravity
Calculated data:
Density of HDPE=¿ 1323 kg/m3
Density of water=¿ 1000 kg/m3
Density of droplet=¿1000 kg/m3
Density of feed=¿ (0.5*1000)+(0.5*323) =1661.5 kg/m3
Average Temp=¿ (200 +65)/2 = 132 °C
Density of air at averagetemperature Pf =¿0.865 kg/m3
Viscosity of air at average temperature µ=¿ 23.329*10-6 N/M
Settling velocity V s=¿ 0.3078 m/s
Reynolds Number is found by use of equation 2.14

D p vs ρ p
Re = =1.41<2
μ
Thereby, STOKE’s law is applicable now:

Operating velocity (Va) use equation 2.15:
V a =2∗( Settling Velocity )
V a =2∗( V s )=0.6155 m/ s
5.5.5Column Diameter (Spray Chamber)

To calculate column area use equation 2.16
(Gs∗V avg )
Column area A c =
Va
Gs =¿ 2738.8 kg/hr
V avg =¿ 1.1859 m/s
V a =¿0.6155 m/s

Ac =¿ 1.46578 m2
For column diameter use equation 2.17:
C olumn Diameter D c =
√ 4∗A c
π
Dc =¿ 1.3661m
Allow 15% allowance for safety
Dc =¿ 1.15* Dc =¿ 1.57405m
Residence time use equation 2.17:
t d=50
√ W S1
10
=10 sec
Time to evaporate water droplet use equation 2.18

2
λw ρp X1 D P
θp=
12 K f Δ T 1
Where:
P p=¿Density of feed; λ w =¿Latent heat of vaporisation at normal boiling point pt = 2256.9
kj/kg; K f =¿ Thermal conductivity of air at average temperature = 0.0033925 watt/m/k
ΔT t =¿ Temperature driving force = Gas inlet temperature – temp of dry solid surface
ΔT t =¿ Tavg - (t1 + t2)/21 = 133;
θ p =0.0142 sec
As θp is less than Td, evaporation of drops can happen and design is acceptable.
5.5. Chamber Dimensions
It is a cylindrical chamber with a conical bottom.

 Total Volume of chamber (Vt) is found by equation 2.19:
3
V t =Gs ¿ V avg ¿ t d =5.5239 m
 Minimum height of cylindrical portion (hmin) is given by equation 2.21:
h min=v s∗θ p=0.00437 m

 Recommended height of cylindrical portion (hcyl) is given by equation 2.22:
h cyl=0.6∗D c =0.9426 m
 Volume of conical portion of chamber Vcone is found by equation 2.23
2
π Dc hcyl 3
V cone =V t − =3.69668 m
4
 Height of conical portion of chamber is found by equation 2.24:
3∗4∗V cone
h cone= 2
=5.7209 m
π Dc
 Cone angle is calculated by equation 2.25:
∝=2 tan
−1
( )
Dc
2h cone
=15.63 degrees
5.6 Mechanical Design
Thickness of chamber tmin is calculated by equation 2.26:

Dc +100
t min = =0.1628 inches=0.004135 m
1000
The next available thickness is the 0.25 inc mild steel therefore it will be used for design.
Since the head and the wall are under the same stress, we can assume the same thickness for
both.
5.7 Hot Air Inlet
Assume operating velocity Vair =10m/s

 Minimum cross sectional area Amin is calculated by equation 2.27 as below:
Gs∗V avg 2
Amin = =0.07607 m
V air
Contamination of outlet air with particles requires a higher cross sectional area for outlet
duct than that of inlet duct.
 Area of Inlet pipe is to be calculated by equation 2.28

Given: Rectangular duct of length to breadth ratio of 1.2:1 is used. Breadth of duct is
0.257m and length is 0.3021.
2 2
Areaof Inlet duct =1.2∗breadth =0.07607 m
Outlet duct should have higher cross sectional area than inlet duct so:
Length of outlet duct=0.35 m
Breadth of outlet duct=0.264 m
5.8 Sizing Heater and Blower
The calculations of the size of the blower and heater required cannot be separated as the size
of each depends on the other.
5.8.1 The Volumetric Flow Rate

The volumetric flow rate required for the drying rate is evaluated as follows in Equation
2.29.
ma
V a=
ρa
0.7605
V a=
1.0447
3
V a =0.72796 m /s=1542.46 cfm
Where,
ma=¿ The mass flow rate of air, kg/s ; ρa =¿ Density of air at 65℃ = 1.0447kg/m3.
5.8.2Sizing Heater: Power Required to Raise Temperature of Air

Selecting a process heater is based on the choice of rating power rating. In order to raise any
material from one temperature to another, energy must be added the system. The calculation
for this takes the form (in SI units) as in equation 2.29 below:
QT =C m∗M m∗∆t =658.56 Kw
Where;
Qt =¿Heat to raise temperature; C m=¿specific heat of material=4.184kj/C; M m=¿ Mass of
material =3148kg/hr; ∆ t=¿change in temperature 180°C

5.8.3Sizing Heater: Power Required to Compensate Losses

For the sake of simplification, in this project a 10% loss of heat supplied is assumed as in
equation 2.30 below.
Ql=0.1∗Qt =65.9 kw
Where;
Qt =¿Heat to raise temperature; C l=¿Heat losses
5.8.4 Sizing Blower: Power Required for Air Moving Equipment

Assuming operating system resistance of 25cm water, the demand horsepower can be
estimated empirically by equation 2.31 below:
( m3 /min )∗1
h p =vol flow rate out ∗system resistance ( cm water )
K
h p =¿39.7 KW
Where,
K=27.5 For most commercial dryers; system resistance = 25; Vol flow rate =43.7
5.9 Heat Exchanger Calculation
In this section, calculations and sizing of the heat exchanger unit is done. Below is the load
data to be used in the calculations.
Table 5.6: Summarizing load data for heat exchanger calculations
Load Parameters Load value

Tube side Mass flow 4000kg/hr =1.11kg/s
Shell side mass flow 4300kg/hr= 1.194 kg/s
Tube side fluid Cool ambient air
Shell side fluid Hot moist air
Specific heat of air 1.005
Tube temperature in 25 degrees Celsius
Tube temperature out 46 degrees Celsius
Shell temperature in 65 degrees Celsius
Shell temperature out 46 degrees Celsius
Heat duty 22.8 kw

5.9.1 Heat Duty

Heat duty which is equal to both heat lost on the shell side and heat gained on the tube side
is calculated by equation 2.34 below
Heat duty=Qgain=Qloss=M flr∗heatCapacity ( T ¿ −T out )
Heat duty=1.11∗1.005∗( 65−45 )=22.8 KW
5.9.2 Tube Side Calculations: Tube Pitch

Assumed outer and inner diameter in correlation to standard sizes
For design purposes, assumed diameters are suggested in correlation to (J Coulson, 2002)
 Tube outer diameter = 20 mm
 Tube inner diameter = 18 mm
 Tube length = 3m
Tube Pitch is calculated by equation 2.35:

tube pitch=1.25∗tube outer diameter
tube pitch=1.25∗20=25 mm
5.9.3 Calculation of Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

Log mean temperature difference is calculated by equation 2.36 below:
( T 2−t 1 )−(T 1 −t2 )
T lm=
( T 2−t1 )
ln
(T 1 −t 2)
( 46−25 )−(65−46)
T lm= =19.88° ∁
( 46−25 )
ln
(65−46)
Where,
T lm=¿log mean temperature difference ;
T 1=¿Hot moist air inlet temperature =65° ∁
T 2=¿Hot moist air outlet temperature=46 ° ∁
t 1=¿Ambient air inlet temperature= 25° ∁
t 2=¿Ambient air outlet temperature= 46 ° ∁
5.9.4 Provisional area

Provisional area is made subject of formula using estimated overall heat transfer coefficient.
It is calculated by equation 2.37 below:
Q 2
Provisinal Area= =3.45 m
U 0 ∆ T lm
22.8∗1000 2
¿ =3.45 m
350∗18.89
Where:
Q=¿ Heat duty of heat exchanger = 22.8KW; U O =¿ Estimated overall heat transfer
coefficient= 350; ∆ T lm=¿ Log mean temperature difference= 19.88 ° ∁
5.9.5 Area of One Tube

Area of one tube is calculated by equation 2.38 below
Area=π∗tube outer diameter∗tube length
π∗20 2
¿ ∗3=0.19 m
1000
5.9.6 Number of Tubes

Number of tubes is calculated by equation 2.39 below
Provisional Area
number of tubes=
Area of OneTube
3.45
¿ =18 tubes
0.19
5.9.7 Number of tubes per pass

Number of tubes per pass is calculated by equation 2.40 below:
Total Number of Tubes
Number of tubes per pass=
Total Number of passes
18
¿ =9 tubes for pass
2
5.9.8 Tube Cross Sectional Area

Tube cross sectional area is calculated by equation 2.41 below:
2
π∗Inner tube dia
Tube cross sectional area=
4

2
π∗18 2
¿ =254 m
4
5.9.9 Tube Cross Sectional Area per Pass

Cross sectional area per pass is calculated by equation 2.42 below:
area∗Nof tubes
Cross sectional area / pass=cross sectional
Nof passes
2
¿ 0.00025∗9=0.0023 m
5.9.10 Tube side velocity

Tube side air velocity is calculated by equation 2.43 below
mass flow rate
Tube side air velocity=
1.11
¿ =0.71m/ s
5.9.11 Bundle diameter

Bundle diameter is calculated by equation 2.44 below
Bundle dia=Tube outside dia∗¿
Constants for 2 tube pass square pitch are used.
5.9.12 Shell Inner Diameter

Shell inner diameter is calculated by equation 2.45 below
Shell Inner Diameter=bundle diameter +bundle shell clearance=190 mm
5.9.13 Baffle Spacing and Shell Side Velocity:

Baffle spacing: according to (J Coulson, 2002) the baffle spacing can be 0.2 to 1 of the shell
inner diameter. Baffle spacing is calculated by equation 2.46 below:
Baffle spacing=shell inner diameter∗0.5=95 mm
5.9.14 Volumetric Flow rate – Shell Side

Volumetric flow rate is calculated by equation 2.47 below
mass flow rate 3
Volumetric flow rate= =0,002778 m / s
density

5.9.15 Heat Transfer Area on Shell Side

Heat transfer area on shell side is calculated by equation 2.48 below
Area= ( tube pitch−tube

tube pitch
dia
)∗shell inner dia∗baffle space=0,003616 m2
5.9.16 Shell Side Velocity

Shell side velocity is calculated by equation 2.49 below:
Volumetric flow rate
Velocity= 5.9.17 Number of Baffles
area
Number of baffles is calculated by equation 2.50 below:
Tube length
Number of buffles= =32 baffles
buffle spacing
5.11 Simulation
Simulation was done using Aspen V10 software because it gave the author access to most
tools which were helpful in analysis and representing the system. Aspen V10 has a library of
standard equipment which can be selected for simulation purposes without having to draw
them unlike in other simulation software like Solid works. Aspen also allowed energy
analysis, Hazop analysis and other analysis.
5.10 Summary
With the help of equations 5.1 to 5.30 and other assumptions, the design parameters for the
machine were determined. These will be used to come up with the final design though some
may have to be adjusted accordingly to give a design that can be manufactured with the
guide of the calculated data. Table 12 below is a summary of the design data.
Table 5.6: Design Data Summary
Design Parameter Calculated Practical

Rotary Atomiser Rating 11 KW 11 KW
Blower Power rating 39.7 KW
Heater and loss Power ratings (Heat Duty) 125 KW
Chamber efficiency 70% assumed 70%
Total volume of chamber 5.5239 m3 5.5239 m3
Diameter of chamber 1.57104m 1.57104m

Height of cylindrical portion(0.6Diameter) 0.9426m 0.9426m

Height of conical portion 5.7209m 5.7209m
Bottom cone angle 15.6306 degree 15.6306 degree
Shell Plate thickness 0.16 inch 0.25 inch
Hot air inlet duct 0.3021m*02517 0.3021m*02517m
m
Hot air outlet duct 0.35m* 0.264m 0.35m* 0.264m
Heat exchanger duty 22.8KW

CHAPTER 6: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
6.1 Introduction
In the following chapter the designer is going to show the results from the calculations that
were made in the design of the various subsystems to come up with the plastic dryer system.
This chapter will, in addition, present the numeric figures and detailed design drawings as a
summary. The chapter also gives the aspects such as assembly drawings, detailed designs,
materials specifications, component dimensions. The designer also included a financial
analysis of the machine as well as the bill of materials that are required to come up with the
final machine including.
6.2 Design Brief and Discussions
The design which was done by the designer aligns with the standard laws of engineering
design the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. The design was done in
order to satisfy the design needs as required by the engineering board while satisfying the
need for drying maize at the required speed, health related issues and environmental
concerns. The design phase went all the way through; analysis, conceptual design, detailed,
design and software development. The design phase was made to keep in track with the
design objectives at every stage as mentioned in the first chapter. The 3D modelling of the
design drawings was successfully made with inventor Autodesk and AutoCAD.
6.3 Integrated Operation of the Subsystems
The design is made up of subsystems that solve different problems to achieve the ultimate
function of drying rigid plastic chips in economic time. The first subsystem is the evaporator
system which consists of the evaporator shell, the atomiser and the feed system. The second
system is the product collection and air conditioning system which consists of a condenser, a
dehumidifier and a heat exchanger
6.3.1 The Evaporator System

The evaporator system is made up of a shell which houses the atomiser. The shell is also
where the wet plastic is delivered by a feeder on to the atomiser which breaks the water

element into vapour. The atomiser is run by a motor which is mounted on the roof of the
shell. The shell is made up of a dome shaped top, a cylindrical mid section and a conical
bottom. The shell also has inlet pipes which deliver hot dry air for the sake of evaporating
the water droplets. After absorbing the hot wet air, outlet pipes are used to extract the air
towards the air conditioning system. After coming out of the heat exchanger, the hot moist
air goes through the condenser, filter and then to the heater. After the heater, the air is then
reintroduced to the dryer shell for purposes of drying.
6.4 Working Drawings
Detailed working drawings show the design detail of the mechanical components of the
plastic dryer that cannot be shown clearly on the generated models. Figure 6.1 and 6.2
shows the diagrams of the layout of the dryer.
Figure 6.1: Showing the generated model drawn on solid works
6.5 Working Components
The working components and their specifications are outlined in the table 6.1below
Table 6.1 Outlining Specifications of Components

Description Specifications
Blower  3200rpm , 5000watts
Heater  Power = 125KW

 12 Volt nominal
 Peak Amps = 7.5
Atomizer  Rotary disk

 18500 rpm
 Diameter: 18cm
 10 vanes of height 1.9 cm
Heat exchanger  Shell and pipe

 22.3 KW
Duct work  Inlet 0.3021m*02517m

 Outlet 0.35m* 0.264m
Blower fan  129.36 HP

 96.KW
6.6 Financial Analysis
 For the proposed Layout of the machine, it is necessary to calculate the costs of
coming up with the plastic drier. The sum of money needed before the machine can
be put into operation known as the total capital investment (TCI), consists of the
fixed-capital investment (FCI) and the working capital (WC). The FCI can further be
sub-divided into direct cost and indirect cost, (Anderson, 2009). Direct cost
represents the capital required for a complete process set up, including yard
improvement, purchased equipment cost, cost for installation and services. Indirect

cost represents the capital need for non-manufacturing cost, which includes legal
expenses, construction expenses, engineering and supervision, and contingency.
6.6.1 Estimation of Total Capital Investment

The factorial method was used for cost estimation of the total capital costs. This method
uses the estimation of costs of purchased equipment as the basis, (SY Ereev, 2012). A brief
summary of the factorial method of cost estimation is given below;
 Estimate the purchase cost of the major equipment items.
 Calculate the total physical plant costs (PPC)
 Calculate fixed capital cost from physical plant costs
 Estimate the working capital as a percentage of the fixed capital (3 to 30%)
 Add the fixed and working capital to get the total investment required.
 Fixed Capital Costs
Table 6.2 below shows the fixed capital expenditure of the rigid plastic drier. The plant
equipment cost is obtained in Table 6.3 Bill of Materials. The Fixed Capital Cost for the
rigid plastic drier is $4,519.80.
6.6.2 Estimation of Total Capital Investment

The factorial method was used for cost estimation of the total capital costs. This method
uses the estimation of costs of purchased equipment as the basis, (Dysert, 2003). A brief
summary of the factorial method of cost estimation is given below;
 Estimate the purchase cost of the major equipment items.
 Calculate the total physical plant costs (PPC)
 Calculate fixed capital cost from physical plant costs
 Estimate the working capital as a percentage of the fixed capital (3 to 30%)
 Add the fixed and working capital to get the total investment required.
 Fixed Capital Costs
Table 6.2 below shows the fixed capital expenditure of the plastic drier. The plant
equipment cost is obtained in Table 6.3 Bill of Materials. The Fixed Capital Cost for the
rigid plastic drier is $4,519.80.

Table 6.2 Outlining a Summary of Capital Expenditure
Capital Expenditure Amount(USD)

Civil and Structures $1,300.00
Plant Equipment $2,505.00

Electricals and Instrumentation $250.00
Engineering Services(10% of civil and structural) $130.00

Total CapEx $4,185.00
Contingency @5% $209.25
Total Fixed Capital $4,519.80
 Working Capital
The additional investment needed, over and above the fixed capital, to start the machine up
and operate it to the point when income is earned is called Working capital, (C w). Working
capital can vary from as low as 3 % of the fixed capital therefore,
Cw=0.1× $ 4,519.80
Cw=$ 451.98
The working capital for the project is $451.98. Therefore, the total Capital Investment is:
Total Capital Investment =¿ Cost Investment +Working Capital
TCI =$ 451.98+ $ 4,519.80
TCI =$ 5061.78
6.6.3 Estimation of Production Costs

Operating expenses are recurring expenses a business incurs in order to keep it running,
such as staff wages and office supplies. Operating expenses do not include cost of goods
sold (materials, direct labor, manufacturing overhead) or capital expenditures (larger
expenses such as buildings or machines). Operating expenses significantly affect the cash
flow and profitability of a venture. These costs are divided into categories of manufacturing

costs and general expenses. The major components of manufacturing cost/operating costs,
including utilities and labor cost, are estimated in this plastic dryer design. Operating costs
vary directly with the rate of work.
The machine operates all year round except for festive break (50 weeks):
351days/yr
Availability per year: 96%
Total operating hours per year (11hour shifts): 7700 hrs
Operating costs=¿ operating costs (Cf ) +Variable operating Costs(Cv)
 Fixed costs
These include costs such as operating labor, capital repayment charges, insurance, etc. The
costs do not depend upon the production rate, and they must be paid even if no plastic is
being dried.
 Capital charges are recovered from the project to repay the initial capital investment.
The procedure adopted depends upon the accounting practice of the company.
Capital is often recovered as a depreciation charge of 10% per annum Interest must
also be paid on the capital borrowed to finance the drying plant. The capital may be
obtained from company reserves, but it should be repaid with interest-based upon a
consideration of the alternative investments and their return on capital, that is
applicable market rates, (Sundararajan, 2007).
 Rates are payable to the local authority based upon the assessed rateable value of the
site. A typical figure is l-2% of the capital cost.
 Insurance for the site, the machine and employees is usually about l-2% of the fixed
capital.
 Royalties and licence fees are payable to the individual responsible for developing
the process. This payment may be a lump sum or an annual fee, and is typically
either l-5% of sales price of 1% of the fixed capital.
 Variable costs such as utilities (services), etc. These costs are dependent upon the
amount of plastic dried. The following items represent the more common operating
costs.

 Miscellaneous materials include items such as safety clothing, chart recorder paper,
etc., that are not included as raw materials or maintenance materials. These are
usually calculated as 10% of the total maintenance cost.
 Utilities (services) include electricity, water etc
 Maintenance includes materials and labour costs. This cost is typically between 6%
of the fixed capital investment, (Woodward, 1997 ).
 Labour costs should be estimated from reasonably detailed manning estimates. The
operating labour costs may not decrease if production is reduced, however overtime
payments will be required for significant increases in production. Operating labour
costs do not normally exceed 15% of the total operating cost.
 Laboratory costs for analysis associated with quality control and monitoring. An
approximate estimate can be obtained as 5-10% of the operating labour cost, or 2-4%
of the total production cost.
 Plant overheads include general operating costs such as security, medical,
administration, etc. This item is often estimated as 50- 100% of maintenance.
Table 6.3 shows standard numbers of operators that can possibly work on a piece of
equipment or section of a plant.
Table 6.3 Showing Standard Number of Operators in the Operation Flow
Equipment Number of Operators

Production Plant personnel/machine 3(for each shift)
Production Supervisor1 1
The dryer, working at 50% design capacity can process 300 kg per hour of plastic according
to design. In a year of 7700 operating hours, it can process close 2’310’000kg which is 2310
tones of plastic material. Total number of operators needed for the three shifts is 3 and will
work 7700 hours per year in total. The wage rate is assumed to be $2.35/hour. The annual
$ 2.35
salary of the 3 worker is calculated to be $18000 per year ( ×7700 hours ).
hour
For fifteen farmers producing an average of 5 tons of maize per farmer, the total tones to be
dried will be 75 tons. The 75 tons divided into 1.5 tons’ batches (drier capacity) will need 50
batches of grain being dried 6 hours per batch, therefore 75 tons of grain will be dried in 300

hours per. Total number of operators needed is 2 and will work 300 hours per year. The
wage rate is assumed to be $5/hour. The annual salary of the worker is calculated to be
$8
$1500 per year ( ×300 hours). The wage rate for the production supervisor is
hour
$10.60/hour to give $18000/year.
Annual cost of operating labour=Operators salary+ Supervisors Salary
¿ ( $ 6000 ×3 ) +(18000 ×1)=$ 36000
Total Annual Utility Expense=hours∗utils per hour∗cost per hour
¿ 7700∗175∗0.16
¿ $ 215,600 .00
Table 6.4 gives a summary of all the manufacturing costs that can be incurred by the plastic
drier. The summary of manufacturing costs is shown in table 6.4. The expected demand
plastic to be dried is 2310 tons per year.
The total general expenses for the machine are determined by:
Total Annual Expense= Annual Cost of Operating Labour + Annual Utility Cost
¿ $ 36000+ $ 215600=$ 251,600.00
6.6.4 Revenue
The revenues for this project are the incomes earned from sales of recycled plastic pellets.
From annual production rates, the revenues expected can thus be calculated using:
Annual sales revenue=Selling Price∗Annual productionrate
Annual sales revenue=$ 350 × 2310tons / yr
¿ $ 808,500.00 USD
The total revenue generated is =$808,500.00.
The total profit generated per annum = total revenue - expenses
¿ $ 808,500.00−$ 251600
¿ $ 556900.00
Therefore, the expected annual cash income = US$ 556,900.00
The net annual cash income is found by subtracting the annual amount of tax from the
annual cash income. Assume that annual tax is 15 % of annual cash income.
Annual Cash Income=$ 556,900.00−($ 556900.00∗0.15)
¿ $ 473,365.00

6.6.5 Cash Flow

The cash flows are based on the best estimates of investment, operating costs, sales volume
and sales price that can be made for the project. Cash initially flows out of the company to
pay for the costs of engineering and equipment procurement. Once the machine is installed
and begins operation, then the revenues from sale of product begin to flow into the
company. The net cash flow at any time is the difference between the earnings and
expenditure.Net annual cash flow (NACF) after tax is given by:
NACF=Net Annual Cash Income− Annual Expenditure of Capital
The annual expenditure of capital is not necessarily zero after the plant has been built
because working capital, plant additions, or modifications may be required in future. This
will be estimated as 10 % of the fixed capital investment.
Annual Expenditure of Capital=0.10∗$ 23,490.00
¿ $ 2,349
Therefore, net annual cash flow after tax/ net profit is calculated as:
Net Profit=$ 473,365−$ 2349
¿ $ 471,061
6.6.6 Payback Period

Payback period is the time required after the start of the project to pay off the initial
investment from income, (Ardalan, 2013). The payback period caters only for the period
before the break-even point and does not give the expected rate of return.
Cash Cost
Payback=
Net Profit
$ 60799.00
¿
$ 471,061
=0.64 year ≈ 192 working days
The summary for the above calculated entities for financial analysis is shown in Table 6.4.
Table 6.4 Showing a Summary of Financial Analysis

Total Capital Investment $40,799

Annual Production Costs $251,600
Unit selling price $390/ton
Revenue $900,900.00.
Annual Net Profit $ 471,061.52
Annual Cash Income $ 473,365.00
Payback 192 working days
6.6.7 Bill of Material

The total cost of implementing the project requires the drawing of the budget. A bill of
quantities was performed to find the total cost required to carry out the project and is shown
in Table 6.5 below.
Table 6.5 Outlining the Bill of Quantities
Unit Price/ Total Price/

Description Quantity
USD USD
5kW Blower * 2 3 $300.00 $900.00
Kohler Heater 250 KW 1 $19000 $19000
Motor 1 $3000 3000
Carbon steel shell 1 $97 $97
3mm Galvanised Metal Sheet 30m2 1m*1m $41.00 $2050
Carbon steel tube 24 $245 $5875
Baffles 32 $111 $3552
Support brackets 12 $116 $1392
Gaskets 2 $34 $68
Tie rods and spacers 2 $17 $34
Fixed head 1 $8 $8
Channel cover 1 $19 $19
Sealant 1 $4 $4
Fabrication Labor 4 $1000.00 $4000.00
Fabrication Consumables 1 $200.00 $200.00
TOTAL MATERIAL COSTS $40,799

6.7 Project SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis in Error: Reference source not found below shows a justification to the
machine design project.
Helpful Harmful
to achieving the objective to achieving the objective
Strengths. Weaknesses
 Employment opportunities can be  High initial investment.
(attributes of the system)
created.  Does not use renewable energy.

 Does not require any fuel and  Need for space in the factory floor
thus avoid problems of fuel  Could cause noise pollution due to
Internal origin
transportation and storage of moving parts

radioactive wastes  high operating costs
 Helps to recycle plastic in bulk
Opportunities Threats
origin
(attributes of the environment)
 Improved market share  Threat from other dryers using

 Government emphasis & support renewable energy due to its high
on recycling opportunities. per unit production of cost.
 Threat from other energy efficient
dryers due to its high per unit
production of cost.
External
Figure 6.4 Showing Project SWOT Analyses
6.8 Aspen Simulation
Aspen V10 is the software that was used to simulate the process. The results obtained
thereof were used to validate the project’s calculated results from design. Below in figure
6.5 is the process flow diagram showing the process flow diagram and the results from the
simulation. The full results are shown in appendix.

Figure 6.5: Showing the Process flow diagram after running the simulation
6.8 Aspen Simulation Results Vs Calculated Results
Table 6.6 below outlines the differences between calculated outputs of the system against
the Aspen V10 simulation results. The differences as shown in the table are attributed to
 Calculation errors
 Calculation assumptions
 Differences in mathematical models used to represent the system
However, the designer was satisfied with difference ranges and thus validated the manual
calculation to a greater extend. Therefore, the machine is feasible and it is possible to
develop.
Table 6.6: Showing calculated results summary Vs Aspen simulation results
Parameter Calculated result Aspen Result Difference

Final Product 5% 3.7% 1.3
Moisture
Temperature of outlet 65℃ 68℃ 3℃
air

Heat Duty of dryer 102 KW 94.8 KW 7.2

Heat Duty of Heat 168 KW 162KW 6
exchanger
Heat exchanger area 3.45m2 1.6480 m2 2.4912
6.9 Chapter Summary
This chapter summarizes the outcomes of the project through analysis using different tools.
The project was analyzed for functionality, validated and tested for feasibility. The various
components required in the project have been discussed and costed. A financial analysis has
been performed to investigate the financial feasibility of the project. An Aspen V10
simulation has been done for purposes validating manual calculations of the design of the
system and a conclusion was made that the system is feasible.

CHAPTER 7: CONLUSION AND RECOMENDATIONS

7.1 Introduction
The chapter marks the end of this project. It presents the conclusions of the work that was
done towards achieving the objectives that were made towards the project in developing of a
dryer for washed plastic during recycling. The recommendations highlight key areas of
possible improvements while the conclusion summarizes all the deductions in the research.
Limitations of the system research are also highlighted.
7.2 Project Overview
To a higher extent the goal of designing a rigid plastic dryer has been accomplished. The
design satisfies the required specifications and objectives in the mechanical design. The
objectives of the project were successfully achieved when the simulation testing were done
and the calculated results were found to be within an acceptable range of the simulated
results. The dryer has a capacity to dry 600 kg of plastic in an hour from 20% moisture to
1% moisture content. Free water on the surface of rigid plastic chips is atomized by a
rotating disk atomizer to increase surface area. Heated air is supplied to vaporize the water
and is pumped out through a heat exchanger to the environment.
7.2.1 Economic Viability of the Project

The project has been proven to be economically viable again as shown by the financial
analysis. The system will have increased efficiency as compared to previous mechanism of
drying rigid plastic chips. Therefore, with a higher volume of production the sales revenue is
likely to increase in like manner. It can now be concluded that the proposed design is a
potentially transformative and cost effective project with great potential to improve the
quality of the plastic product.
7.2.2 Environmental Impact of the Project

While the project helps to deal with the environmental impact of plastic waste by optimizing
hence incentivizing the process of plastic recycling, it does pose a potential threat to the
environment in form of its notably large usage of heat energy. This is an area of possible

improvement in the future. The project, however, applies heat integration through preheating
of ambient air in a heat exchanger using exhaust air in order to reduce the heat duty of the
heater.
7.2.3 Project Findings

All objectives of the project were achieved. The objective of simulating the system was the
hardest to achieve because of lack of suitable software that could model the project to an
extent the designer desired. The author also struggled to find literature on droplet theory
which he needed to model the behavior of droplets of liquids in motion which the author
needed to design the shell.
7.3 Recommendations
It is recommended that the following aspects be taken into consideration for the
improvement and full operational performance of the rigid plastic dryer;
1. Periodic Maintenance - Periodic greasing of the fans as per the requirements of the
maintenance and reliability strategies. Maintenance of the system should be done bi-
weekly visual checks, monthly checks of the atomizer during operations.
2. Research and development - A study should be carried out on the best operating
point and further optimisation of the issues not looked by the scope but have been
omitted to attain an optimum point that give the best yield of product.
3. Develop a computer simulation technique to predict the droplet behavior as it has
impact on the dryer sizing which in turn has impact on energy usage.
4. Vary the atomizer speed, air flow rate into the dryer and evaluate their effects on
performance and cost per unit of heat delivered.
5. Following a similar approach used in the research study, design construct and test a
spray drying system for other solids with free water.
7.4 Project Constraints

The project was mainly constrained by Covid 19 pandemic, cost, schedule and scope. These
four constrains were much related to each other such that increasing one constraint would
negatively affect the outcome of the other constraint. The scope of the project comprised of
the goal, tasks as well as the deliverables that marks the boundaries of the project. The
schedule was bounded by the 10 month timeline which was also preoccupied with other

learning objectives during a time marred by Covid 19 pandemic imposed lockdowns. The
costs associated with the project included money to build prototypes or buy simulation
software. Both options were very expensive considering economic hardships which are, but
not entirely, associated with the Covid 19 pandemic period.
7.5 Conclusion
The project above has been the design of a rigid plastic dryer for use by plastic recyclers
anywhere in the world including in Zimbabwe. The project gives an understanding of the
potential of drying solids containing free water using spray drying. In this chapter, an
overview of the project is given which includes its operating mechanism, economic and
environmental viability.

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APPENDICES
Appendix A. Summary of Manufacturing Costs
Typical Values Estimated Values(USD)

Estimated Capital Cost $40,560.00
Estimated Fixed Capital $4,519.80
Estimated Working Capital $451.98
Estimated Operating Labor $2,900.00
Fixed Costs
Maintenance 5% of fixed capital costs $225.50
15% of estimated operating
Operating labor cost $435.00
Laboratory Costs 5% of fixed operating costs $145.00
Supervision 20% of operating labor $580.00
Plant overheads 50% operating labor $1,450.00
Capital Charges 10% of fixed capital $451.00
Insurance 1% of fixed capital $45.20
Local taxes 1% of capital cost $50.61
Royalties 1% of fixed capital $451.98
Sub-total R $3834.29
Variable Costs
Miscellaneous materials 0.1 of maintenance costs $4,152.55
Utilities 0.4 of plant overheads $251,600.00
Shipping and packaging Usually negligible
Subtotal F $602.55
Annual Production Cost =
R+F $261,652.00

Appendix B. Level Performance Table

Selection Criteria Levels of Performance
More Attractive Less Attractive
Cost 6%
Product cost Very cheap Cheap Expensiv Very expensive
e
Time of assembly Very short Short Moderate Long
Ease of assembly Very easy easy Hard More difficult
Ease of repair Easy Hard Harder More harder
Machine use cost Cheap Cheaper Expensiv More expensive
e
Payback time Very short Short Long Much longer
complexity Non Small Big Bigger
Competitive Very high unique High Low Lower common easily
advantage technology copied technology
Efficiency 40,5%
Product availability Very high High Low Very low
Comply with Very high High Low Lower
purpose
Appearance of end Very good Better Good Bad
product
Production time; Very high High Low Lower
volume dried per hr
Machine reliability Very high High Low Lower
Ease of machine Very easy Easy Hard Very hard
maintenance
Parts availability Very high High Low Very low
Machine weight Very big Big Small Very small
Durability 24,5%
Strength of assembly Very high High Low Very low
Durability of Very high High Low Very low

assembly
Health 15%
Environmental Very clean Clean Less High pollution
concern clean
Safety of end Very high High Low Lower
product
Safety of machine Very high High Low Lower
use
Market 9,9%
Size Very high High Low Very low
Durability Very high High Low Very small
Competition Non no One Two or Four or more competitors
competitors more in the market
Portability 3,8%
Ease of use Very easy Easy Hard Much harder

Ease of Very easy highly High Low Very low

transportation portable
Machine size Very small in size Small Smaller Much more smaller
Appendix C. Complete Concept Screening Matrix

Selection Criteria Concept 4 Reff Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3
Cost 6%
Assembly cost 0 - - _
Time of Assembly 0 - - -
Ease of Assembly 0 + + +
Ease of repair 0 + + +
Machine use cost 0 - - 0
Payback time 0 - - 0
Complexity 0 + + 0
Competitive advantage 0 - - 0
Efficiency 40,5% 0 - - 0
Product availability 0 0 0 0
Comply with purpose 0 0 0 0
Production time; volume dried 0 - 0 0

per hr
Machine reliability 0 0 0 0
Ease of machine maintenance 0 + + +
Parts availability 0 + + +
Machine weight 0 + + 0
Durability 24,5%
Strength of machine 0 0 0 0
Durability of machine 0 0 0 0
Health 15%

Environmental concern 0 - 0 0
Safety of machine use 0 0 0 0
Market 9,9%
Size 0 + + +
Durability 0 0 0 0
Maturity 0 0 0 0
Competition 0 0 0 0
Portability 3,8%
Ease of use 0 + 0 0
Ease of transportation 0 + 0 0
Machine size 0 + + +
Sum 0s 26 9 13 19
Sum – s 0 8 6 2
Sum +s 0 10 8 6
Net score 0 -2 2 4
Ranking 3 4 2 1
Continue Yes No Combine Combine

Appendix D. Concept Scoring Matrix
Selection criteria % weight Concepts
Concept 4- Reff Concept 3
rating Weighted rating Weighted

score score
Cost 6%
Manufacturing cost 0.5 3 0.015 4 0.020

Time of 0.5 3 0.015 4 0.020
manufacturing
Ease of 0.5 3 0.015 4 0.020
manufacturing
Ease of repair 0.5 3 0.015 4 0.002
Machine use cost 1.5 3 0.045 3 0.045
Payback time 1,5 3 0.045 3 0.045
Complexity 0.5 3 0.015 4 0.020
Competitive 0.5 3 0.015 3 0.015

advantage
Sub total 0.18 0.205
Efficiency 40,5%
Product availability 5 3 0.150 3 0.150
Comply with purpose 6 3 0.180 4 0.240
Appearance of end 7 3 0.210 3 0.210

product
Production time; kgs 6.5 3 0.195 3 0.195
per hr
Machine reliability 1 3 0.030 3 0.030
Ease of machine 5 3 0.150 4 0.200

maintenance
Parts availability 5 3 0.150 3 0.150
Machine weight 5 3 0.150 4 0.200
Sub total 1.215 1.375

Durability 24,5%
Strength of machine 6.4 3 0.192 3 0.192
Durability of machine 8 3 0.240 3 0.240
Sub total 0.432 0.432
Health 15%
Environmental 5 3 0.150 3 0.150

concern
Safety of end product 5 3 0.150 3 0.150
Safety of machine use 5 3 0.150 3 0.150
Sub total 0.450 0.450
Market 9,9%
Size 4 3 0.120 4 0.08
Durability 4 3 0.120 3 0.120
Maturity 0.5 3 0.015 3 0.015

Competition 1.4 3 0.042 2 0.028
Sub total 0.297 0.243
Portability 3,8%
Ease of use 1.2 3 0.036 3 0.036

Ease of 1.8 3 0.054 3 0.054
transportation
Machine size 0.8 3 0.024 4 0.032
Sub total 0.114 0.122
Total score 100% 2.688 2.827
Continue NO Yes +
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Design of a Drying Process for Washed Recycled Rigid Plastic Material

Romeo Estara IME 2021 Page i

Romeo Estara IME 2021 Page ii

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION.................................................................................1

1.2 Problem Statement......................................................................................................1

1.10 Chapter Summary......................................................................................................6

CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................7

Romeo Estara IME 2021 Page iii

2.1 Spray Drying Principle and Terms..............................................................................7

2.2 Drying Air Characteristics...........................................................................................7

2.3 Terms and definitions................................................................................................10

2.4 Psychrometric Chart..................................................................................................11

2.5 Fall Velocities............................................................................................................13

2.6 Components of a Spray Drying Installation..............................................................13

2.7 Drying chamber.........................................................................................................14

2.8 Hot air supply system................................................................................................17

2.9 Evaporation and product output rate calculations.....................................................28

2.10 Heating of atmospheric air......................................................................................29

2.12 Factors That Affect Influence the Flowability of Bulk Solids................................31

2.13 Dehumidifier Selection............................................................................................32

2.14. Sizing Heater and Blower.......................................................................................33

2.15 Shell and Tube Heat exchanger...............................................................................35

CHAPTER 3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................42

3.2 Design Process..........................................................................................................42

3.3 Task Clarification......................................................................................................43

3.4 Conceptual Design....................................................................................................43

3.5 Embodiment of Design..............................................................................................43

3.6 Detailed Design.........................................................................................................44

3.7 Justification of the Pahl and Beitz Design Process...................................................44

3.8 Research Method.......................................................................................................45

Romeo Estara IME 2021 Page iv

3.9 Research Problem......................................................................................................45

3.10 Research Approach and Design...............................................................................45

3.11 Sources of Data.......................................................................................................46

3.12 Data Collection Techniques....................................................................................46

3.13 Concept Generation Methodology..........................................................................48

3.5 Quality Function Deployment QFD..........................................................................53

3.6 Value Engineering.....................................................................................................54

3.7 Root Cause Analysis.................................................................................................54

3.8 Fishbone Diagram.....................................................................................................55

3.10 Chapter Summary....................................................................................................56

CHAPTER 4-CONCEPT GENERATION AND CONCEPT SELECTION.....................57

4.2 Concept Generation...................................................................................................57

4.2 Concept One- Open Orientation................................................................................58

4.3 Concept two- Closed Orientation..............................................................................60

4.4 Concept three- Closed Orientation with Air Preheating............................................62

4.5 Concept Selection......................................................................................................63

4.6 Concept Screening.....................................................................................................64

4.7 Concept Scoring........................................................................................................65

4.8 Product Decomposition.............................................................................................65

4.9 Chosen Concept.........................................................................................................66

4.10 Chapter Summary....................................................................................................67

Romeo Estara IME 2021 Page v

CHAPTER 5- DETAIL DESIGN.......................................................................................68

5.2 Material Selection......................................................................................................68

5.3 Load Information to be Considered in Design..........................................................69

5.4 Design of Rotary Atomizer.......................................................................................70

5.5 Designing Spray Drying Chamber............................................................................71

5.5. Chamber Dimensions...............................................................................................76

5.6 Mechanical Design....................................................................................................77

5.7 Hot Air Inlet..............................................................................................................77

5.8 Sizing Heater and Blower..........................................................................................78

5.9 Heat Exchanger Calculation......................................................................................79