Belt Dryer Example

Aspen Plus V8.0

Aspen Technology, Burlington, MA

2013

© 2013 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved

 Open the File Base Case_V8.0.bkp

Drying gas is preheated by

the primary heater and then
distributed to chambers

Each chamber has its own

heater to reheat the
circulation air
It is possible to add cooling
stages at the end of the
dryer for heat recovery

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 Objective

Goals
 Wet solids must be dried from 261g H2O/kg Al2O3 to less
than 11g/kg
 We want to reduce energy demand by at least 10%

Constraints
 Throughput must not be changed (2t/h)
 Temperature profile should not change substantially

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Select DryerSpecification Layout

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STAGE1 (Dryer)

Drying Curve on
the next page

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STAGE1 (Dryer) – Drying Curve

The critical moisture

content is 0.1kg
H2O/kg AL2O3

The normalized drying

curve is used to model the
2nd drying period

Here it is defined by a table

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 Run the Model

Run the model

Open the layout DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

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 DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

Solids heated at Constant solids T

constant T for first 3m
Inlet: 300K because 1st drying
Inlet: 261 g/kg period ends
dry (critical moisture
content is met);
after T rises

2nd drying period

Rising solids T Outlet: 387K
and non-linear Outlet: 11g/kg
decrease in wet
moisture.

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STAGE4 (Dryer) – Results Profiles - Plot

Outlet: 387K

We can reuse the energy

of the hot solids leaving
the dryer by adding a
cooling stage

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 CALC MOISTURE ON DRY BASIS View
A Calculator is used to
determine the product
moisture content on a
dry basis

𝑀𝑤−𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑑 + 𝑀𝑤−𝑚𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 1000𝑔 𝐻2 𝑂

𝑋𝑑𝑟𝑦 = Outlet dry moisture
𝑀𝑠−𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑑 + 𝑀𝑠−𝑚𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 1𝑘𝑔 𝐴𝑙2 𝑂3 ~11g H2O/kg Al2O3

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DryerProfilesAndEnergyConsumption View

See expanded energy

demand table on the
next slide

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Calculating the Energy Demand

The outlet temperature of the

heaters is set to a user-defined
value and by that the heat duty
of each heater can be
determined using a Calculator

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Custom Tables – EN-DEMAN tab

93% of energy
is consumed by
the primary heater

We can add a
cooling stage which can
be used to preheat the
air for the primary heater

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Open the File BeltDryerWithCoolingStage_V8.0

The cooling stage

has been added

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CoolingStageSpecificaiton View

All specifications
except the length
are the same

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 Run the Model

Run the model

Open the layout DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

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 DryerSolidsTemperatureMoisture

Profiles are
very similar
to base case

Cooling Chamber:
Solids cooled to air
T while air is heated
~5K

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DryerProfilesAndEnergyConsumption View

3.2% decrease
in energy demand

The target is
10% decrease

Since the solids

moisture is below
spec, we can reduce
mass flow of the
drying air

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Activate Optimization and Constraints

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 OptimizationSetup View

Variables
 ENERGY: total energy demand of the dryer
 XWATER: moisture content of the product on a dry basis
Objective
 Minimize ENERGY
Optimization Variable
 Vary mass flow of drying air (G1)
Constraint
 XWATER ≤ 11g/kg dry

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Setting the Optimization

Vary G1 from 5 to
8.333 kg/s

Base case is 8.333kg/s

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Setting the Constraint

Moisture content of
Water must be less than
11g/kg dry

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 Run the Simulation and View Results

Optimized Gas Flow Rate

~6.5kg/s

Enter this value for G1

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Deactivate Optimization and Re-run the Model

Final energy demand

is reduced by 23% to
~430kWH/ton

Final moisture content is

~11g/kg wet

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OptimizedDryerProfilesAndEnergyConsumption View

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 Summary

Problem
 Reduce energy demand while staying within required
moisture specification and throughput
Solution
 Add a cooling stage
 Use Optimization and Constraint to determine the optimal
conditions while staying on spec
Result
 Energy demand reduced by 23%
 No substantial change in temperature profile

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