(672c) Use of Feed Conditioning to Address Operational Issues in Industrial Dryers

Industrial dryers often suffer from plugging, rinding and doughy phases which prevent them from operating at maximum capacity and achieving specification moisture.  The use of feed conditioning and dry product recycle can be a powerful technique to overcome all of these problems.  This paper will focus on how to determine optimal levels of feed conditioning using shear testing (both internal cohesion and wall friction) in conjunction with Kofler plate techniques.  Several full scale industrial case studies will be examined where these techniques are applied to solve operational issues.