Estudo teórico da transferência de calor e massa na secagem de tijolos cerâmicos com forma paralelepipédica.

Abstract

In the manufacture of clay ceramic materials, the product undergoes the steps of molding, drying and firing. Drying is a thermodynamic process which occurs through the reduction of the moisture content of the solid by supplying energy thereto. During drying, depending on operating conditions may arise cracks, deformation and warping which contribute to reducing the quality of the product after drying. Moisture transport from the center to surface of the product can occur in liquid and/or vapor form, depending on the type of product and moisture content. This work presents an analytical study of the drying of a parallelepiped solid. It was developed a transient and three dimensional mathematical model based on Fourier and Fick's Laws to predict heat and mass transfer that occurs in the solid, considering constant thermo physical properties and boundary conditions of 3rd kind (convection). All mathematical formalism and analytical solution of the partial differential equations using the method of separation of variables of has been presented. For obtain the results, it was developed a computational code using the Mathematica ®commercial software. Application was done to ceramic brick drying. Simulated results of heating and drying kinetics of the parallelepiped solid, as well as of moisture content and temperature distributions during the process are presented and discussed. It was found that the mass diffusion coefficient is dependent on the chemical composition of clay (clay type), initial moisture content of the sample and temperature and relative humidity of drying air varying from 0.22x10-8 to 2.73x10 -8m2/s, when the temperature increased from 60 to 110ºC, respectively, and that the vertex of the ceramic solid dry and heat more fast generating stress in this region which can provokes cracks and deformation that can a affect the final quality of the product. The control of the drying process is extremely important, because depending on the material during the drying process, there may be considerable deformation in manufactured products, ranging from thermal and water stress, thereby increasing process costs and losses of companies.