Mathematical Modeling of Heat, Mass, and Momentum Transport in MDF Fiber Drying

Abstract

A 3D two-phase flow drying model for medium density fiberboard (MDF) fibers was developed and implemented in the Ansys-CFX commercial CFD software. The model was validated against measurement data [1] with satisfactory results. A parameter study was done to study the effects of dryer temperature and mass loading of fibers. A realistic dryer geometry has been simulated and it has been demonstrated that the model can capture 2D and 3D flow phenomena that affect the drying results. The simulation results can be used to determine suitable ways for improving dryer efficiency.

Development of a grey model for a medium density fibreboard dryer in ecosimpro

“…Detailed models of MDF dryers can be found in literature [4], [5]. However, these models involve solving partial differential equations (PDE), which are computationally expensive for online control and optimization purposes.…”

On Stiction Compensation Methods for Practical Nonlinear MPC Implementations

“…Detailed first-principle models of MDF dryers involve partial differential equations (PDE) [23], which are computationally expensive to solve in online MPC optimizations. Moreover, in our case the residence time of the fibers inside the dryer tube is found to be less than the sampling time of the data acquisition system ( = 5 s.), so no information of the drying dynamics inside the tube can be fitted to experimental data.…”

“…Some performance tests were run to quantify the benefits (performance loss w.r.t the perfect actuator) of the proposed approaches. The tests were done against a plant simulation that uses a PDE model of the drying section [23]:…”