A mathematical model for simulation of simultaneous unsteady heat and mass transfer in fluidized-bed drying of large particles is proposed. A set of coupled non-linear partial differential equations is employed to accurately model the process without using adjustable parameters. A three phase model representing a bubble (dilute) phase, interstitial gas phase and a solid phase is used to describe the thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of the bed. The bubble and temperature distributions inside the solid phase is applied. The flow field is divided by an orthogonal grid to a finite number of control volumes to simulate the variation of the properties for the three phases in longitudinal direction. The Crank-Nicholson implicit numerical method is applied to solve the set of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations with variable mass and thermal diffusivity for a spherical-shape particle. pilot-scaled fluidized bed dryer was built to test the results of proposed model with those obtained by experiments using wheat particles as a bed charge. A good agreement between the numerical and experimental results is observed.
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