Advanced control of paste drying in spouted bed

• Grant number: 11/21413-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: May 01, 2012
• End date: March 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering - Industrial Operations and Equipment for Chemical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Jose Teixeira Freire
• Grantee: Gustavo Nakamura Alves Vieira
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The moisture content of solids after the drying process is an important variable for industrial processes, determining the quality of the final product. Nevertheless, it is not an easily controllable variable, due to lack of equipment for measuring them. Currently, controllers used in industrial dryers are mostly manual and based on the experience of operators. However, with technological development in data acquisition and numerical simulations, it is possible to use physical and mathematical models together with control strategies, improving the accuracy and robustness of the control of dryers. Therefore, we propose the study of advanced control strategies in the drying of pastes in spouted bed. Preliminary experiments will be made to characterize the equipment to be rebuilt in the Drying Center (DEQ / UFSCar), with subsequent identification of the dynamics of the drying process, ending with the proposition and implementation of advanced control strategies, among which the inferential control, using the conservation laws of mass and energy and artificial neural networks for fitting models to experimental data. The accuracy and the robustness of the control strategies analyzed are going to be checked, pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy analyzed. Thus, it is expected to contribute to a better understanding of advanced control strategies applied to drying processes.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

VIEIRA, GUSTAVO N. A.; OLAZAR, MARTIN; FREIRE, JOSE T.; FREIRE, FABIO B.. Real-time monitoring of milk powder moisture content during drying in a spouted bed dryer using a hybrid neural soft sensor. Drying Technology, v. 37, n. 9, p. 1184-1190, JUL 4 2019. (11/21413-6)

VIEIRA, GUSTAVO NAKAMURA ALVES; FREIRE, FABIO BENTES; FREIRE, JOSE T.. Control of the Moisture Content of Milk Powder Produced in a Spouted Bed Dryer Using a Grey-Box Inferential Controller. Drying Technology, v. 33, n. 15-16, p. 1920-1928, 2015. (11/21413-6)