Drying Desk: Seven ways to increase your dryer's production capacity
I'm often asked, "How can I get more capacity out of my dryer?" Happily, there are several ways to do this. Before getting to some practical methods, let's review some drying basics.
In bulk solids drying, heat is transferred from a heat source to a wet bulk material. Dryers use one of three methods to transfer heat: convection, conduction, or radiation. In a convection dryer [including flash, hopper, rotary, spray, tunnel, fluid-bed, and other dryers] the heat source [hot gas] directly contacts the wet material and carries away the evaporated moisture. In a conduction dryer [including drum, paddle disc, thermal-screw, steam-tube rotary, and other dryers] a metal wall separates the heat source [hot gas, steam, hot water, or hot oil] from the wet material, so that the heat source indirectly contacts the material.