SUMMARY
Paper drying efficiency could be enhanced through incorporation of a pulsating impingement drying system. Under certain circumstances pulse combustors have been shown to improve both heat transfer and drying rate when compared to steady flow impingement. Despite this potential, there have been few investigations into the use of pulse combustor driven impingement for industrial drying applications. For example, while commercial impingement systems would most likely implement multiple impingement jets, previous work concerning pulse combustor driven impingement used only single impingement jets. In order to move towards commercial implementation the system parameters that affect burner performance must be identified and thoroughly investigated for conditions similar to the intended use. The proposed work will further the current knowledge by analyzing the heat and mass transport phenomena in and above the sheet using experimental and modeling techniques. The experimental work will provide an increased understanding of physical processes as well as provide data that will be used to validate the numerical simulation work. Confined single nozzle and multiple nozzle pulse combustors that impinge on a moving impingement surface will be explored as part of the experimental work. The numerical model will be implemented using the commercial software FLUENT. Following validation the simulation will be used to explore the interactions of various system configurations with model substrates. A parametric study of the performance impact and trends of various operational conditions and material properties will be performed. Of particular interest is the optimization of the drying system for industrial paper drying and the identification of optimal substrate characteristics. The latter portion will allow recommendations of other industrial processes that would be well suited for pulsed air drying.