Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249

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Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec

Discrete particle simulation of food grain drying in a uidised bed

Jannatul Azmir a, Qinfu Hou a,, Aibing Yu a,b
a
ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Computational, Particle Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
b
Centre for Simulation and Modelling of Particulate Systems, Southeast University - Monash University Joint Research Institute, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Drying is a common practice for post-harvest processing of food grains. Fluidised beds are often adopted for this
Received 29 May 2017 purpose. It is of importance to understand the uidised bed drying process for improving its energy efciency.
Received in revised form 28 August 2017 This work establishes a numerical drying model based on the combined approach of computational uid dynam-
Accepted 4 October 2017
ics and discrete element method for describing heat and mass transfer in the gas-solid ow system. Water evap-
Available online 06 October 2017
oration is modelled in resemblance to a chemical reaction, thereby requiring fewer model parameters. The model
Keywords:
is rst described in detail. Then it is tested by comparing model predictions with those experimental data of corn
CFD-DEM kernel from the literature. General drying characteristics including grain and air moisture contents are
Fluidised bed reproduced qualitatively. The predicted drying rate curves are quantitatively comparable with those of experi-
Drying rate mental data. Finally, the effects of inlet air velocity and temperature are examined. The model predictions conrm
Moisture distribution that the drying rate increases with both the inlet air velocity and temperature. However, the drying product
quality, here represented by the standard deviation of grain moisture distribution, increases with increasing air
velocity or decreasing air temperature. This grain scale model would be useful to the design and control of the
drying process.
2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Drying is a common practice in food processing, mainly to prevent
post-harvest deterioration, to restrict microbial growth and spoilage and
to reduce handling costs [1]. It is one of the most important and
frequently used unit operations in a variety of industrial applications e.g.
food, pharmaceutical, wood processing and so on [2]. In practice, drying
requires a high energy input because of the high latent heat of water
evaporation. To improve energy efciency, many novel drying techniques
have been introduced. Meanwhile, most of the existing drying techniques
are continuously being re-visited, optimised or integrated to minimise
energy requirement and to improve product quality. Among them,
uidisation is an important mode in drying of food grains due to its
intensive mixing of solids and high efciency in heat and mass transfer [3].
Experimental approaches are traditionally used to investigate drying
processes. However, the costs for experiments are very high. As an
alternative way, computational approaches can be used with relatively
low costs either to optimise the existing processes or to develop a
new procedure, allowing detailed investigation of complex drying
mechanisms [4]. Several advanced computational methods were
established for drying. Computational uid dynamics (CFD) is the
most used one and it is a powerful tool for its capacity of in-depth anal-
ysis of ow, mass transfer and heat exchange in multi-component
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: qinfu.hou@monash.edu (Q. Hou).
systems [57]. However, it is difcult for CFD to consider the discrete
nature of grains [8].
In recent years, the discrete element method (DEM) is increasingly
used to study granular ows in different systems [8,9]. In such DEM
models, the motion of each grain is described by Newton's laws of mo-
tion and it is able to consider the forces due to gravity, grain-grain and
grain-wall interactions, capillary bridges or an electrostatic eld [10].
When the effect of an interstitial uid is signicant such as in uidised
beds, DEM models can be combined with CFD to investigate coupled
gas-solid ows and heat and mass transfer therein [8].
The main advantage of the combined CFD-DEM approaches is to
generate detailed grain scale information, including grain trajectory
and the forces acting on individual grains. Many studies demonstrated
that the CFD-DEM approach is effective to examine the ow and heat
transfer in uidised systems (see, for example, [1015]). The uidised
bed drying involves simultaneous heat and mass transfer to evaporate
and remove water from grains to a drying medium [2]. Hence the
CFD-DEM approach is suitable for modeling the drying process by
incorporating suitable heat and mass transfer models [16,17]. To date,
such a CFD-DEM model has not been developed with the simple drying
model requiring fewer model parameters [1821].
This work aims to develop and test a new model for food grain dry-
ing in a uidised bed. First, a detailed description of the model is given.
Then, the model is tested by comparing the predictions with literature
data in terms of drying kinetics. Last, the effects of pertinent operation
parameters on the drying rate and the probability mass function of

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2017.10.019
0032-5910/ 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249 239

grain moisture content are discussed. It will be demonstrated that the Table 1
CFD-DEM approach is useful for understanding the drying process and Equations to calculate forces and torques on particle i.

hence for improving product quality. Force or torque Equation

Normal elastic force, fen,ij p 3 =

2. Model description 43 E R n 2 n
Normal damping force, fdn,ij p 1 =
C n 6mij E R n 2 Vn;ij
The gas-solid ow system for drying of food grains is considered Tangential elastic force, fet,ij s j f en;ij j11=t; max =2
3
^t
here as a coupled system of a continuum gas phase for the drying medi- Tangential damping force, fdt,ij p 1
=
C t 6 s mij jf en;ij j 1t =t; max =t; max 2 vt;ij
um (hot air in this work) and a discrete solid phase for food grains Coulomb friction force, ft,ij j f en;ij j ^t
s
(called as particles hereafter). Torque by tangential forces, Tt,ij Rij (fet,ij + fdt,ij)
Rolling friction torque, Tr,ij ^ nij
r;ij jf en;ij j
2.1. Governing equations for the discrete solid phase Particle-uid drag force, fd,i 0.125Cd0,if d2pi2i |ui vi |(ui vi)
i

where 1/mij = 1/mi + 1/mj, 1/R = 1/Ri + 1/Rj, E = E/[2(1v2)],

^ nij nij jnij j, t = | t |,
The solid phase is described by the DEM, originally proposed by ^t t =jt j, Rij = Ri(rjr i)/(Ri + Rj), t,max = sn(2v)/(2(1v)), vij = vjvi + j

Cundall and Strack [22]. A particle is considered to have two types of R j i R i , v n,ij = (v ij n)n, v t,ij = (v ij n) n, i = 1 ki = 1 V i / V,
v

motion: translational and rotational. The particle may interact with its
neighbouring particles and/or walls in moving, through which the
momentum and energy are exchanged. The motion of a particle is deter-
mined by Newton's laws of motion. At time t, the governing equations
for the translational and rotational motion of particle i with radius Ri,
mass mi and moment of inertia Ii can be written as:


mi dvi =dt j f e;ij f d;ij f pf ;i mi g;
= 2.65( + 1) (5.3 3.5)2 exp[(1.5 log10Rei)2/2], Cd0, i = (0.63 + 4.8/Re0.5 2
i ) ,
Rei = f dpii | ui vi |/ f.
Note that tangential forces (fet,ij + fdt,ij) should be replaced by ft,ij when t t,max.
where hfg is the latent heat of vaporisation of free water (KJ/Kg). The
coefcients a and b for the grain are determined as 3.2 and 21.7 [29].
The moisture content is described as a chemical component in the
1 particle and the conservation equation is written as:

mi dY i;H2 O =dt Si;H2 O ; 5

and


Ii dwi =dt j Tt;ij Tr;ij ;
where vi and i are the translational and rotational velocities of the par-
ticle. fpf,i and mig are the particle-uid interaction force and the gravita-
tional force. The other forces involved are the elastic force fe,ij and the
viscous damping force fd,ij. The torque acting on particle i due to particle
j includes two components: Tt,ij which is generated by the tangential
force and causes particle i to rotate, and Tr,ij which, commonly known
as the rolling friction torque, is generated by asymmetric normal contact
forces and slows down the relative rotation between contacting parti-
cles [23,24]. If particle i undergoes multiple interactions, the individual
interaction forces and torques are summed up for all particles
interacting with particle i. Note that the water in the studied range of
moisture content is mainly in the form of absorbed water and there is
no liquid bridge. Hence no capillary force and agglomeration are consid-
ered and they might become important for high moisture contents.
Most of the equations for determining the forces and torques have
been well established as reviewed by Zhu et al. [10]. The equations of
the forces and torques for the present study are well documented in
the previous studies [25] and given in Table 1 for completeness.
Heat exchange occurs by convection heat transfer with surrounding
uid, conduction heat transfer to neighbouring particles or walls and ra-
diative heat transfer to the environment. The governing equation of the
energy balance for particle i can be written as:
where Yi,H2O is the mass fraction of moisture in particle i and Si,H2O is the
2
exchanged moisture with surrounding drying medium.
The water evaporation model, developed by Chen and co-workers in
resemblance to a chemical reaction [19], is adopted for the drying of
spherical food particles since it requires fewer model parameters. Note
that this work for the rst time combined the CFD-DEM approach and
the simple water evaporation model for the drying process. Hence the
drying rate can be expressed as:


Si;H2 O hm A v;s v; ; 6
where v,s and v, represent the vapour concentrations at the particle-
medium interface and in the drying medium (kg/m3), respectively. hm is
the mass transfer coefcient (m/s) and A is the surface area (m2). hm can
be determined by the established Sherwood number (Sh). For a spheri-
cal particle, Sh = 2 +0.6Re1/2Sc1/3, where Re and Sc are the Reynolds and
the Schmidt numbers, respectively.
The vapour concentration at the particle-medium interface can be
obtained from the saturated vapour concentration according to the fol-
lowing equation [20]:
v;s exp Ev =RT v;sat T s ; 7
where Ev is the relative activation energy of evaporation, depending
on the moisture content. T is the temperature of the particle being

mi cp;i dT i =dt j Q_ i; j Q_ i; f Q_ i;rad Q_ i;wall Q_ i;dry ; 3

Table 2
Heat transfer modes and the equations for determining heat exchange rates.
where Q_ i; j, Q_ i; f and Q_ i;rad are the heat exchange rates by conduction, con- Heat transfer Equation for heat exchange rate
vection and radiation respectively. Q_ and Q_
i;wall represent the con-
i;dry
mode

duction heat exchange rate between the particle and wall and the Convection Q_ i; f 2:0 a Rebi Pr1=3 k f Ai T=dpi
heat for drying, respectively. cp,i is the particle heat capacity. Eq. (3) Q_ f ;wall 0:037 Re0:8 Pr1=3 k f Aw T=L
has been established on the basis of heat balance at a particle scale Rr q 
Conduction
Q_ i; j T j T i rsijsf 2  r R2i r 2 rR2i H=r ij  1=kpi 1=kpj
[26,27]. The equations to calculate heat exchange rates in Eq. (3) are q 
2R2i H R2i r 2 =k f 1 dr
listed in Table 2 [13,26].
The heat of drying from a particle can be expressed as a function of the Q_ i; j 4r c T j T i =1=kpi 1=kpj
Q_ i; j cT j T i r 2c t c
1=2 1=2 1=2
moisture content of the particle and its variation, given by [28]: =pi cpi kpi pj cpj kpj
Radiation Q_ i;rad eAi T 4local;i T 4i , Q_ f ;rad e f A f T 4local;i T 4f


Q_ i;dry hfg 1 aexp bY i;H2 O  Si;H2 0 : 4 where Tlocal,i = fTf, + (1 f)kj= 1Tj(j i)/k

240 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249

dried. Ev can be expressed as the product of equilibrium activation f u u1  23 f uk) and f (f = 1 ki =

energy Ev,b and the function of the difference in the moisture content
f(X Xb), i.e., Ev =Ev,bf(X Xb). Ev,b can be calculated as a function
of the relative humidity (RHb) by Ev, b = RTf ln(RHb). v,sat(Ts) is the
saturated vapour concentration (kg/m3) at the surface temperature Ts.
For the range of temperature 0200 C it can be calculated according
to the following equation [30]:
v;sat T s 4:844  109 T s 2734 1:4807  107 T s 2733
2:6572  105 T s 2732 4:8613  105 T s 273
8:342  103 : 8 and SH2O is the vapour exchanged between the drying medium and the
So Eq. (6) can be expressed as
 
Si;H2 O hm A exp Ev =RT v;sat T s v; : 9 2.3. Coupling of CFD and DEM
v
1Vi/ V) are the
uid viscous stress tensor and the local porosity, respectively. Vi is the
volume of particle i (or a part of the volume if the particle is not fully
in a CFD cell) and kv is the number of particles in the computational
cell of volume V. ke is the uid thermal conductivity. Q_ is the heat ex-
changed with the drying medium in a CFD cell per unit time,
determined by Q_ i1
kv _
Q f ;i Q_ f ;wall Q_ f ;rad =V . cpf and Tf
represent the heat capacity and the temperature of the drying medium,
respectively. YH2O,f is the mass fraction of vapour in the drying medium
particles in a CFD cell per unit time. m is the diffusion coefcient of
moisture.

For the particles studied, the temperature T is assumed the same as The coupling of CFD and DEM is well documented [14] which has
the surface temperature Ts. been followed in this study with minor modications. The coupling of
CFD-DEM with the drying model is illustrated in Fig. 1. In each time
2.2. Governing equations for the continuum gas phase step, the information of individual particles such as position, velocity,
temperature and moisture content is produced by the DEM which is
The continuum phase is modelled according to the widely used then used to evaluate porosity, particle-uid interaction forces, heat
conventional two-uid model [31]. The conservation equations of ux and moisture evaporation in a computational cell. The information
mass and momentum in terms of the local averaged variables over a is then used for the CFD to determine uid ow, temperature eld and
computational cell are given as [25,32]: moisture transportation and to nd particle-uid interaction forces,
heat transfer between the drying medium and particles or wall, and
   
f f =t f f u 0; 10 the evaporation rate of moisture, respectively. Incorporation of the
resulting forces, the heat uxes and the moisture evaporation into the
DEM produces the information of the position, the velocity, the temper-
and ature and the moisture content of individual particles for next time step.
   
f f u =t f f uu p Ffp f f g: 11 3. Simulation conditions

The corresponding energy equation for heat transfer and the species In the present study, operation parameters for drying of corn are
(moisture) transport equation are given as [33]: obtained according to the experiments conducted by Cil and Topuz
    [34]. For simplicity, a mono-sized drying material (for corn kernel) is as-


f f cpf T f =t f f ucpf T f ke T f Q_ ; 12 sumed to be spherical with a diameter of 0.006 m and this is a limitation
at this stage of model development. The size and density of particles are
considered as constant throughout the drying process because of the
and
relatively low initial moisture content (i.e., 23% on dry basis). Physical
   
 properties of particles and model settings are given in Table 3. A total
f f Y H2 O; f =t f f uY H2 O; f f m Y H2 O; f SH2 O : 13
of 5000 particles at 25 C is used as the initial solid phase in the uidised
bed for all cases.
Fluid velocity, density, pressure and volumetric uid-particle The uidised bed with the height of 3.6 m, the width of 0.18 m
interaction force are represented by u, f, p and Fpf, respectively. The (30dp) and the thickness of four particle diameters (4dp) has been
volumetric particle uid interaction force is given as a sum of the used. The periodic boundary condition is applied to the front and rear
Pv
drag and the pressure gradient forces, Ffp ki1 f d;i f pg;i =V. ( direction to eliminate the effect of walls. For the above conditions, 2D

Fig. 1. Information exchange between the CFD and the DEM in the drying model.
 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249
Table 3
Model settings and physical properties of the solid phase.
Variables Values
Bed geometry, width height (m) 0.18 3.6
CFD cell, x z, (m) 0.012 0.012
Inlet air velocity (m/s) 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Gas density, f (kg/m3) 1.20
Particle number 5000
Particle shape Spherical
Particle diameter, dp (m) 0.006
Particle density, p (kg/m3) 1270
Initial moisture content (g/g) 0.23
Particle-particle/wall sliding friction, s 0.4
Particle-particle/wall rolling friction, r 0.01
Particle Young's modulus, E (MPa) 10
Particle poisson ratio, v 0.3
Time step, s 2.47 105
Fluid type Air
Fluid temperature (C) 70, 100, 140,160, 200
CFD and 3D DEM are used which is reasonable as the bed width is much
larger than its thickness [35]. In the CFD computation, two major treat-
ments are adopted for transferring information between 2D CFD and 3D
DEM [36]. One is used to get the local porosity with only one control vol-
ume assumed in the thickness direction. The particles in a given CFD cell
are determined only by the coordinates in the x and z directions. The
other one is used for the transfer of momentum, energy and mass
sources assuming that the sources in the bed thickness direction are
negligible. The non-slip boundary condition is applied to the walls for
the gas ow.
An in-house CFD-DEM code is developed for the drying in the
uidised bed. A simulation started with the generation of particles with-
out any overlap in the bed, followed by a gravitational settling process
where all the applicable inter-particle forces are considered. This set-
tling process continues until the rotational and the translational veloci-
ties of particles decrease to a negligibly small value (e.g., 105 m/s for
the translational velocity). Hot air, introduced from two corners of the
bed, is used to dry food particles at a given velocity. Different tempera-
tures in the range of 70200 C were applied to evaporate moisture
from the particles. The lowest temperature is so chosen to match the
experiments for testing the model predictions and the highest one ac-
cording to the validation range of Eq. (12). Air velocities in the range
of 310 m/s are used to examine its effect on drying. A constant time
step is used for all cases.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Drying process
The drying process is rst discussed here including the mixing of
particles, temperature and moisture content evolution in the drying
medium and solid particles, respectively. This section can be treated as
a qualitative test of the model. Further test against experiment mea-
surements is presented in the Subsection 4.2.
Fluidised beds are widely used in the drying for their good mixing
performance important to achieve a uniform product quality. Therefore,
the time required for a good mixing of particles is one of the important
parameters for a uidised bed dryer [37] and it is examined here.
Fig. 2(a) illustrates the particle identity in the xed bed at the beginning
of drying (i.e., 0 s). Fig. 2(b) shows that a good mixing of particles is
qualitatively achieved at the very early stage of the drying (~ 10 s) at
the air velocity of 7 m/s and the air temperature of 100 C. Quantitative
evaluation of the mixing will be presented in the study of the effect of
the inlet air velocity in the Subsection 4.3.
Fig. 3(a) illustrates the variation of the temperature distribution in
the drying medium (i.e., hot air) with time at the inlet air temperature
of 100 C. The temperature of the hot air increases with time and it
241
Fig. 2. (a) Particles before mixing with their identities (ID) indicated (0 s) and (b) particle
mixing at 10 s for the inlet air velocity of 7 m/s.
reaches the maximum value at ~270 s. Fig. 3(b) shows the variation of
moisture content in the hot air. At the beginning (i.e., 0 s), the air is at
the room temperature and there is no water for the current study. In
the initial stage (0 ~ 30 s) the particles are heated up by the hot air grad-
ually. The water in the particles is transferred to the air from the surface
by the convection process and then carried away to the environment. In
the following stage (30 ~ 120 s) the mass of water in the air increases
with time. In the last stage (N ~ 180 s) the water content starts to de-
crease because the particle surface loses its capability to supply enough
free water to the air with the proceeding of drying and the water in the
air is carried away simultaneously to the environment. At around 210 s
the mass of water becomes very low again since almost all water is
transferred to the environment and the drying is said completed.
Similarly, Fig. 4 illustrates the evolution of particle ow pattern, tem-
perature (Fig. 4a) and moisture content (Fig. 4b) at the air velocity of
7 m/s and the air temperature of 100 C. The snapshots are taken at a
30 s interval. Initially, all particles are assumed to have the same mois-
ture content. The air ow is introduced at the beginning of drying
which heats and evaporates water from the particles. Since the hot air
continuously ows through the particles, the particle temperature can
rise continuously up to the maximum level. The particles located at
the bottom part of the bed are heated up rst and dragged upward by
the air ow. Corresponding to the particle temperature, the moisture
ratio of the particles located at the bottom part of the bed starts to de-
crease rst. Then, the particles located at the upper part with low tem-
peratures fall down. Due to the strong mixing and the high gas-particle
heat exchange rate, the particles in the uidised bed are heated up
quickly and nearly reach the inlet air temperature within 210 s. The
moisture ratio of the particles reduces with increasing particle temper-
ature. In this case, all particles in the bed are dried at ~210 s.
4.2. Comparison of model predictions with experiment measurements
The model is further tested by comparing the predicted drying rate
curve with the measured one [34]. Because the model system is smaller
than the experimental one the obtained results are not directly
comparable. Hence all the data from simulations and experiments
are normalised to compare the drying rate curves. The normalization
n X min
of each variable is done according to the equation, X XXmax X min , where
X (or Xn) indicates dimensionless (or dimensional) temperature, time
or moisture ratio. tmax is determined as the period needed to complete
the drying process.
242 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249

Fig. 3. Evolution of (a) temperature and (b) water vapour mass fraction in the drying medium for the inlet air velocity of 7 m/s and the temperature of 100 C.

Fig. 4. Evolution of (a) particle ow pattern and temperature and (b) moisture content in the particles for the inlet air velocity of 7 m/s and the temperature of 100 C.
 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249 243

Fig. 5. Predicted and measured moisture ratio and temperature for the inlet air velocity of 5 m/s and the temperature of 70 C.

Fig. 5 shows the evolution of the predicted and the measured

moisture ratios with time. A similar trend with only the falling rate
stage is observed. This observation is reasonable because the initial
moisture ratio of corn kernel is relatively low. It is known that when
the drying materials contain a low moisture content or the drying of
materials is slow, most of the drying occurs in the falling rate stage.
Note that in practice the drying rate curve may show two stages or
just the falling rate stage depending on the drying process [3841].
The falling rate appears at the moisture content below the critical
point. Below this critical point the surface of drying materials loses its
capability to supply enough free moisture to saturate the grain-
medium interface. This stage proceeds until the liquid at the surface is
completely evaporated. According to the experiment results, the mois-
ture ratio falls rapidly rst, then shows a gradual decrease, and nally
reaches the closing stage very slowly. The curve from the simulation is
quite similar to the experiment one. Nearly 50% of drying is achieved
at around one-third of the complete drying time in both experiment
and simulation studies. It is also observed that the drying rate reduces
exponentially with the decreasing surface moisture until the end of dry-
ing. This could be the result of the very quick evaporation of surface
moisture due to the high heat and mass transfer coefcient in uidised
beds [2].
However, a discrepancy can be observed between the curves which
might be due to the difference between the two systems or other factors
not considered such as the microstructure of drying materials and exo-
thermic pyrolytic reactions. Generally, exothermic pyrolytic reactions
are observed in organic materials exposed to a high temperature
which increases the particle temperature [37,42]. The pyrolytic reac-
tions and their related enthalpy changes are not considered in this
study. The thermal conductivity and the water diffusivity are also as-
sumed to be constant for simplicity. These could be the reasons for the
discrepancy at the top section of the curves.

4.3. Effect of the inlet air velocity

The inlet air velocity is one of the important factors in drying. It can
signicantly affect the particle ow dynamics as well as the heat trans-
fer in the bed. The effect of the inlet air velocity is investigated here in
the range of 310 m/s. At a low air velocity, the particles remain station-
ary in the bed and the air passes through the voids among the particles.
At a high gas velocity, the particles can be transformed into a uid-like
state. Fig. 6(a) illustrates typical particle ow patterns at different Fig. 6. (a) Snapshot of particle ow pattern at different inlet air velocities at 5.0 s and
inlet air velocities. The motion of particles is minor when the air velocity (b) the evolution of the Lacey mixing index with time at 7 and 10 m/s, respectively.
244 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249

Fig. 7. Effect of the inlet air velocity on the drying rate and the temperature of particles at the inlet air temperature of (a) 70 C, (b) 100 C and (c) 200 C.
 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249 245

(i.e., 35 m/s) is lower than the minimum uidisation velocity. The

minimum uidisation velocity for the present simulation settings is
within the range of 6 to 7 m/s as demonstrated, but no effort was
made to determine the minimum uidisation more precisely because
it is not the focus of this study (It can be determined numerically by
using the same approaches as used in our previous study [32].). With
the increase of air velocity beyond the minimum uidisation velocity
(i.e., 710 m/s), gas bubbles are formed in the bed and the mixing of
particles is enhanced. These results show that the variation of particle
ow dynamics with the inlet air velocity can be reasonably predicted
by the present CFD-DEM approach.
Particle mixing is important for ow, heat and mass transfer. Here it
is quantitatively evaluated by the Lacey mixing index by separating the
bed into square cells with the side of two particle diameters [43,44]. The
2 2
index is dened by 02 t2 where 2t , 20 and 2r are the variances of the
0 r

system at a given time, the completely segregated system and the per-
fectly mixed system, respectively. The mixing of particles at a higher ve-
locity (e.g., 10 m/s) is faster than that of a lower air velocity (e.g., 7 m/s)
as shown in Fig. 6(b).
The gas-solid ow dynamics or uidisation regime and the mixing of
particles affect the ow and heat transfer in the bed. Fig. 7 depicts the
effect of the inlet air velocity on the drying rate and the average temper-
ature of particles at different inlet air temperatures (70, 100 and 200 C).
The average temperature rises rapidly up to the maximum value and
becomes nearly constant. The temperature increases faster with in-
creasing inlet air velocity. This work examines the drying process for
the air velocity from 3 to 10 m/s because different air velocities can
yield coupled effects on the gas-solid ow dynamics, gas and solids
mixing, and heat and mass transfer. Faster particle mixing with increas-
ing air velocity (Fig. 6b) could lead to a higher heat transfer rate and
consequently a higher drying rate (Fig. 7). At the given inlet air temper-
ature of 100 C, the time to complete drying for the air velocity of 3 m/s
is around four times longer than that of 10 m/s (Fig. 7b). The strong ef-
fect of the inlet air velocity on the drying rate was also found in the lit-
erature when the range studied is broad [41]. It should also be noted
that such an effect cannot be observed within a very narrow range of
the inlet air velocity [2,38,42].
The nal product quality can be affected by many factors including
chemical composition, physical properties, the level of microbial con-
tamination and the moisture distribution of particles. In addition, uni-
form physical properties such as colour, texture and the shape of dried
food particles are desired by consumers, mostly depending on the mois-
ture ratio of particles. Hence the effect of the inlet air velocity on the
moisture distribution is examined at a given inlet air temperature
(i.e., 100 C) by the probability mass function (PMF). The distributions
as shown in Fig. 8(a and b) are obtained at the same dimensionless
time (corresponding dimensional times are 198.5, 153, 146.5, 130.2,
121 and 120 s for 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 m/s, respectively) when the mois-
ture ratio of particles is reduced by 90% of the initial moisture ratio (to
i.e., 0.03 g/g). In generating PMF the particles with zero moisture con-
tent are excluded. The normal distribution with a narrow peak is ob-
served for the uidised bed state (Fig. 8a). The sharpness of the curves
increases slightly with increasing air velocity. When the air velocity is
low (e.g., within 35 m/s), the particles do not move. So, the particles
at the lower part of the bed contain lower moisture ratios than those
of the upper part although the average moisture ratio of the particles
is the same 0.03 g/g, as shown in the inset to Fig. 8(b). Because of such
Fig. 8. Probability mass function (PMF) of particle moisture ratio with the inlet air
a distribution of the moisture in the particles normal probability distri- velocities of 7, 8, 9 and 10 m/s (a), 3 and 5 m/s (b). (c) Variation of the standard
bution is not observed (Fig. 8b). deviation () of particle moisture distribution with the inlet air velocity at the air
The of the particle moisture ratio distribution, obtained at a given temperature of 100 C. The inset to (b) shows the particle moisture ratio distribution in
average moisture content (0.03 g/g), is adopted as the indicator of uni- the xed bed with the inlet air velocity of 3 m/s.
formity (Fig. 8c). In the xed beds the is very high (e.g., 0.0335 for
3 m/s and 0.0326 for 4 m/s), suggesting a low uniformity of the moisture moisture content and hence a better product quality. These variations
ratio. With increasing air velocity the decreases (e.g., from 0.0127 for are linked to the change of air velocity and temperature distributions.
7 m/s to 0.0099 for 10 m/s), indicating a higher uniformity of the On the one hand, the non-uniform particle moisture ratio could be the
246 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249

result of the non-uniform air velocity (Fig. 9a) and the corresponding
non-uniform air temperature (Fig. 10a). On the other hand, the collect-
ed outcome of the increasing uniformity of particle moisture content
with increasing air velocity can be understood as follow. With the in-
crease of the inlet air velocity the distribution of air velocity in the bed
becomes more non-uniform (Fig. 9b). This will lead to a more non-
uniform moisture content in the particles. However, two other factors
will promote the uniformity of moisture content in the particles. First,
the mean particle velocity increases with increasing inlet air velocity
(Fig. 9c), indicating a higher mixing and hence a higher heat transfer
rate. This will reduce the moisture difference between particles. Second,
the uniformity of air temperature in the bed increases with increasing
air velocity (Fig. 10). Hence the evaporation rate becomes more uni-
form. Therefore, as a collected outcome, the uniformity of particle mois-
ture content increases with increasing air velocity in the studied range.
However, a very high air velocity may lead to strong collisions be-
tween particles and as a result particle breakages or damages. Although
the uniformity of nal product is slightly higher for 10 m/s than that of
7 m/s, 7 m/s could be preferable to reduce the loss due to breakages and
the energy costs to generate the hot air ow.

Fig. 9. (a) PMF of the air velocity in the bed, (b) the of the air velocity distribution, and
(c) the mean particle velocity (Vmag) for different inlet air velocities at the air temperature
of 100 C.

Fig. 10. (a) PMF of the air temperature in the bed, (b) the of the air temperature
distribution for different inlet air velocities at the air temperature of 100 C.
 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249
4.4. Effect of the inlet air temperature
The inlet air temperature is another important factor in drying
[2,38,45]. The drying rate generally increases with the inlet air
temperature as shown in Fig. 11. Its effect on the drying rate is
here examined under different inlet air velocities. A shorter drying
period is observed with a higher inlet air temperature. When the
temperature increases from 70, to 100 and then to 200 C for the
inlet air velocity of 3 m/s, the drying period decreases from
~ 500 s, to ~ 350 s and then to ~ 250 s, respectively (Fig. 11a).
Such a trend is the result of the increased moisture evaporation
from the particle surface due to the higher particle temperature.
As a higher air temperature leads to a shorter drying period, one
may use 200 C or even higher temperatures to reduce the drying
period. However, a high temperature could have side effects on
the product quality such as thermal stress or a damage of physical
structure [2]. Therefore, the use of air temperature of 100 C should
be more reasonable to achieve the activation energy for water
evaporation.
The product quality can be reected to some degree by the uniformi-
ty of the particle moisture content in drying as discussed. The present
model has the capacity to examine the distribution of particle moisture
content. The PMF of moisture content for different air temperatures at
Fig. 11. Effect of the inlet air temperature on the drying rate at the inlet air velocity of (a) 3 m/s, (b) 5 m/s, (c) 7 m/s and (d) 10 m/s.
247
the given average moisture content (i.e., 0.03 g/g) is shown in
Fig. 12(a) at the same dimensionless time (corresponding dimensional
times are 200, 116.5, 77, 67, 53.5 s for 70, 100, 140, 160 and 200 C re-
spectively). The normal distribution of the particle moisture content is
observed here. At a higher temperature the moisture evaporates faster,
leading to more particles completely dried. Fig. 12(b) shows that the
of the particle moisture content distribution increases with increasing
air temperature, implying a less uniform moisture distribution. Such
an observation might be the collected outcome of the given diffusion ca-
pability and the increased drying rate. For the given inlet air velocity, the
diffusion capability and the mixing of particles are largely xed. With in-
creasing inlet air temperature, the drying rate of the particles increases.
When the moisture content in the air cannot diffuse to other areas the
drying rate of particles will decrease. In addition to the insufcient
mixing of the particles with different moisture contents, the uniformity
of the moisture content of the particles is worse for a higher inlet air
temperature. On the other hand, non-uniform air temperature distribu-
tion in the bed could also lead to non-uniform particle moisture distri-
bution. The air temperature distribution and the at a given air
velocity (i.e., 10 m/s) are illustrated in Fig. 13. The of the air tempera-
ture distribution increases with increasing inlet air temperature. A more
non-uniform air temperature distribution leads to more non-uniform
particle temperatures and evaporation rates, resulting in a more non-
248 J. Azmir et al. / Powder Technology 323 (2018) 238249
Fig. 12. (a) PMF and (b) the of the particle moisture distribution for different inlet air
temperatures at the inlet air velocity of 10 m/s.
uniform particle moisture distribution. Although the drying rate is much
higher for 200 C, a moderate temperature such as 70 C or 100 C could
be better when the product quality is considered.
5. Conclusions
This work developed and tested a CFD-DEM model for the drying of
food grains in a uidised bed. This CFD-DEM drying model implemented
suitable heat and mass transfer sub-models and a water evaporation
sub-model in resemblance to a chemical reaction, thereby requiring
fewer model parameters. Thus, the drying model can predict moisture
distribution in the continuum drying medium and the discrete particles.
The predicted average drying rate and the moisture content are consis-
tent with experimental measurements. These observations showed that
the CFD-DEM drying model can reliably generate useful information of
the drying process.
Further study was conducted to examine the effects of the inlet air
velocity and the temperature. The results conrmed the common un-
derstanding of the effects of these parameters. The drying rate increases
with increasing inlet air velocity or temperature. However, the detailed
analysis based on particle scale information revealed that increasing
inlet air velocity and temperature have different effects on the quality
of drying product. The drying product quality, here quantied by the
standard deviation of particle moisture distribution, can be better with
Fig. 13. (a) PMF of the air temperature and (b) the of the air temperature distribution in
the bed with different inlet air temperatures at the inlet air velocity of 10 m/s.
increasing inlet air velocity or decreasing inlet air temperature. These
observations indicated that a proper compromise should be sought be-
tween the drying rate and the product quality. The present CFD-DEM
drying model was developed with mono-sized spherical particles and
without considering the change of particle size in the drying. Further
developments are ongoing to consider non-spherical particle shapes
and the change of particle size for materials with a high moisture.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Australian Research Council
(IH140100035) and Natural Science Foundation of China (91534206,
U1560205) for the nancial support. J. Azmir is also grateful to Monash
University for MDS and FEIPRS scholarships.
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