STUDY OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER DURING IR DRYING OF PAPER

A mathematical model has been developed to study the drying of paper using a gas-fired IR dryer. The model accounts for various phenomena : water and vapour mass transfer, conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer. The phenomenological equations are solved with a finite difference scheme, including a modified upwind differencing scheme to account for water migration within the paper sheet. The simulation results illustrate the basic underlying phenomena involved in IR paper drying and can be instrumental to the engineer to make the detailed analyses of such a drying process. A sensitivity analysis has shown that the drying rate is most sensitive to parameters governing the IR beat transfer process whereas the paper sheet temperature is most sensitive to parameters governing the mass transfer process with the surroundings.