Significance of Bed Shrinkage on Heat and Mass Transfer During the Transport Phenomenon of Humid Air

Simultaneous heat and mass transfer inside a packed bed dryer between a fluid phase and corn kernels was studied. A developed two-phase model for evaluating the effect of bed shrinkage and non-constant physical properties on the drying efficiency was conducted. Experimental data were utilized to develop the governing equations of the bed shrinkage and structural parameters with moisture content inside the packed bed dryer. The developed model was verified by assessing predictions against experimentally obtained moisture content and temperature along the drying bed, as the standard errors of the experimental values compared to the model were found to be close to the accepted engineering accuracy of 5%. It has been concluded that the incorporation of bed shrinkage and alteration in properties within the operating model is capable of providing a more comprehensive and precise analysis of heat and mass transfer phenomenon in porous media drying, such as corn kernels.