97
American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS)
ISSN (Print) 2313-4410, ISSN (Online) 2313-4402
© Global Society of Scientific Research and Researchers
http://asrjetsjournal.org/
Mass and Heat Transfer Enhancement during 3D
Vibrating Drying of a Clay Porous Brick
Nidhal Ben Khedher*
College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Department, Haïl University, Haïl City, Saudi Arabia, City
Laboratoire d'Études des Systèmes Thermiques et Énergétiques, Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Monastir,
Monastir 5019 Tunisie
Email: nidhal.ben.khedher@gmail.com
Abstract
A three dimensional coupled heat and moisture transfer model for vibrating convective drying process of
unsaturated porous medium was established. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of vibration on the
drying of whole brick. A Three-dimensional unstructured Control Volume Finite Element Method (CVFEM) is
developed. In order to simulate 3-D complex geometries, as application here the drying of whole brick, we
developed Fortran modules to build the polygonal CVFEM mesh based on 3-D unstructured meshes generated
by the free mesh generator Gmsh. The temperature, the liquid saturation and pressure distributions for whole
brick were presented and analyzed for both cases namely with and without vibration. The results obtained state
that the drying process is highly enhanced by vibration and the drying time is reduced by 20%.
Keywords: 3D vibrating drying; CVFEM; Gmsh; unsaturated porous media.
1. Introduction
Technology of vibrating drying has been widely used in industry in several developed countries, and it has
gained more and more attention. Since, the vibration has been found to enhance heat and mass transfer
mechanisms. However, A review of literature shows that only few research papers were conducted to investigate
this technique of drying. Beck and his colleagues investigate the influence of airborne ultrasound conditions on
the drying [1]. Moreover, a fundamental study of the drying intensification by vibration was established by
Colin and his colleagues [2].
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* Corresponding author.