Abstract:
This study is based on a comprehensive analysis of a heating blower system using
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with the Ansys 16 software platform. The
system is designed to function as a heating system for a conveyor dryer. The
heating blower system consists of a motor-coupled propeller with a 7.5-inch
diameter, along with an electrically powered heating coil enclosed within a duct.
The novel system is designed to enhance the turbulence in the heating area to
ensure zero stagnation and enhanced drying conditions at the outlet. This analysis
comprises the detailed design of the blower fan, heating coil, air inlet, and outlets.
A three-dimensional transient flow simulation is done to the specified fluid
domain with major boundary conditions to evaluate the performance of the
designed system. The final design was re-arranged to perform the simulation by
assigning required boundary conditions as 2000 rpm of propeller speed, and 3000
Wm-3 of heat generation rate, and 100 Wm-2K-1 of heat transfer coefficient
under forced convection. The tetrahedron cells with sliding mesh settings for the
inside air were selected to ensure the convergence of the solution. Reynolds stress
model was used with the fluent solver with standard wall function and energy
equations. The results have clearly shown that the assigned heat generation rate
and blower spinning rate are capable of maintaining the average outlet
temperature nearly at 305 K which satisfies the requirement of drying. Further
streamlined plots, and vector plot in all domains proves that the drying area has
high turbulence and zero stagnation points which leads to enhanced heat
exchanging performance.
