PiDryer-Tray is an advanced, interactive chemical engineering simulator that models a convective tray dryer in real time. The simulator replicates the behaviour of a bench-scale pilot tray dryer in which ambient air is drawn by a centrifugal fan, heated by an electric resistance heater, and directed across a tray of wet granular material. As moisture evaporates from the sand surface, a digital balance continuously reports the wet sand mass — tracing the complete drying curve from the constant-rate period through the falling-rate period as it occurs.
Users control three primary variables — fan speed, heater setting, and initial sand loading — and observe immediate effects on inlet and outlet dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures, humidity ratios, air velocity, and the Wet Sand mass trend. All psychrometric calculations use the ASHRAE energy-balance wet-bulb method, which correctly handles the large dry-to-wet-bulb temperature depressions that occur when heated air at 50–60 °C contacts a wet surface near 25 °C — conditions where simpler empirical formulas lose accuracy by several degrees.
Developed by PiControl Solutions LLC, PiDryer-Tray supports courses in heat and mass transfer, drying operations, psychrometrics, and process control at universities and colleges worldwide. It runs equally well as a standalone desktop training tool for process engineers and technicians working with industrial drying equipment.
