Future prospects for dryers

        The future development of dryers will involve in-depth research on drying mechanisms and material drying characteristics, mastering the optimal operating conditions for different materials, and developing and improving dryers; In addition, large-scale, high strength, high economy, as well as improving the adaptability to raw materials and product quality, are the basic trends in the development of dryers; At the same time, further research and development will be carried out on new types of high-efficiency and tailored dryers, such as modular dryers, microwave dryers, and far-infrared dryers.

        The development of dryers also needs to pay attention to energy conservation and comprehensive energy utilization, such as using various combined heating methods, transplanting heat pump and heat pipe technology, and developing solar powered dryers; We also need to develop automatic control technology for dryers to ensure the realization of optimal operating conditions; In addition, with the increasing emphasis on environmental protection by humans, improving the environmental protection measures of dryers to reduce the leakage of dust and exhaust gases will also be a direction that requires in-depth research.

        The current situation and analysis of the Chinese dryer equipment market The current needs of the United Nations indicate that the conventional drying equipment in the domestic market, as well as the main international drying equipment, are mostly manufactured in China. This indicates that the history of import oriented drying equipment in China has come to an end. However, there are still some problems and difficulties. According to the prediction of the China General Machinery Drying Equipment Industry Association, in the next few years, China's demand for the chemical industry will be around 3000 sets of drying equipment; The annual demand for pharmaceutical drying equipment will reach around 3000 sets; The annual demand for industries such as agriculture, forestry, grain, and light industry, such as drying equipment, is expected to reach around 5000 sets. At present, the drying equipment has a market share of over 80% in the domestic market. www.jiashengsz.com

        It is expected that during the "Tenth Five Year Plan" period, China's drying equipment will have a market share of 90% in the domestic market. At present, there are two methods for addressing performance issues and technological innovation capabilities. Most of the production enterprises in the drying equipment industry in China have gradually emerged as early enterprises based on this industry, with relatively concentrated geographical locations and serious deficiencies in personnel structure. So far, the enterprises are mainly distributed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Liaoning, and black, accounting for almost 50% of the entire industry. In contrast, there are some regions in China where there are no drying equipment manufacturers. Highly competitive industries, some companies focus on immediate results without any systematic development, improve overall quality, and progress slowly, seriously hindering the normal development of the industry. Since the reform and opening up, especially in recent years, China's economic growth potential has been effectively released, and the supply and demand of the shortage economy have undergone fundamental changes, initially forming a buyer's market. In the buyer's market under pressure, some companies are catching up in the market, rather than seeking and exploring new markets. Companies are focusing on the market's demand in the near future for more mature products. Therefore, manufacturers are more concentrated and competitive in ovens, vibrating fluidized bed dryers, and other products. The drying equipment industry is mainly engaged in the development of small enterprises, new products, and the comprehensive launch of new products by imitating each other. It is recommended to develop advanced technology and improve product quality. Compared with developed countries in the world, there is still a certain gap in the same industry in China's drying equipment technology.

        The current market is dominated by products with lower technological content. With China's accession to the World Trade Organization, there will be more international peers entering the domestic market, and we will face enormous competitive pressure in the face of increasingly severe international competition. Leading manufacturers of drying equipment in the world, such as Denmark's Nero Group Co., Ltd., have set up branches in China one after another in Japan to seize the Chinese market. With the acceleration of economic globalization, more companies will target the Chinese market. The increasingly fierce competition requires us to improve product quality through enterprise progress, absorption of advanced foreign technology, innovation, and improvement. The idea is to develop products into large-scale equipment, control automation level, quality, surface treatment equipment, strive to select corrosion-resistant materials, develop multi-functional combination machines, and continue to extend the product lifecycle. Industry associations should organize more enterprises to participate in international technological exchanges and absorb the latest technologies to accelerate the entire industry and improve technological level. The characteristic of adjusting enterprises and cultivating their core competitiveness in China is that enterprises in the drying industry do not do so, are not strong or suitable, rather than perfect, but their overall quality is not high. Most enterprises have backward management and do not meet the corresponding economies of scale. Through the guidance and coordination of industry associations, the blind development situation can be changed.

        Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, as three relatively concentrated enterprises, can consider using this joint venture to cooperate and acquire enterprises in the central and western regions to find a broader space for survival and development. The industry where industrial enterprises take the path of strong alliance has cultivated some technological strength, along with well-known brands and large companies and enterprise groups with independent intellectual property rights. Formed its own unique products and services. The relatively low innovation capacity of drying equipment manufacturing enterprises in China, the introduction of new technologies and products with independent intellectual property rights, and the slow development of a few companies are important reasons for the slow development of drying. At present, there are dozens of universities and research institutes engaged in research and development of drying technology, located in the eastern, western, and southern parts of China. Most of the knowledge achievements have not been effectively transformed into practical productivity. Enterprises becoming the main body of technological innovation should be directly related to various forms of alliances between these universities and research institutions. Therefore, reasonable resource allocation and use can effectively cultivate and develop innovative capabilities of enterprises.

        Looking ahead to the future competitiveness of the drying equipment industry, the focus will be on product quality, technology, services, and prices. The types of equipment used in drying, hot air drying, atmospheric heating equipment, vacuum drying equipment based, and other equipment such as far-infrared drying, flash dryer microwave drying equipment, and other special field users will gradually expand the number of applications. The demand for large-scale standard equipment in food, drug drying, and vacuum freeze-drying equipment will increase, and the demand for combined functions (such as granulation drying, drying filter) equipment will increase. High automation drying equipment will be welcomed in some applications. In addition, the emergence of drying equipment will increasingly focus on quality, corrosion-resistant material drying equipment, and reliable performance, which will be of special concern to users.

        At present, the drying equipment industry has entered a relatively mature stage of development, which can better meet the actual needs of users in various fields. The price of similar foreign products is only one-third, which gives drying equipment a significant advantage in China compared to imported equipment in market competition; On the other hand, most of the larger drying equipment also involves on-site installation, debugging, and after-sales service work, providing domestic users with more choices and convenience for imported equipment. In the international market, China's accession to the World Trade Organization makes drying equipment more conducive to expanding exports. At present, China's main export products are vacuum drying equipment, drying equipment, vibration, small and medium-sized grain, agriculture, forestry, food, and local product drying equipment. The annual export volume exceeds 100 vehicles, mainly exported to Southeast Asian countries and other developing countries, and has opened its doors to the European and American markets.

        At present, China's exports account for less than 5% of the total proportion of drying equipment. Experts predict that during the "Tenth Five Year Plan" period, the total share of drying equipment for exported products in China will exceed 10%. In international competition, the main competitors of drying equipment manufacturing enterprises in China are Denmark, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Japan. Compared to competitors, the advantage lies in the fact that drying equipment in China is very cheap, mainly due to deficiencies in controlling the degree of automation of products, further improvement in appearance quality, functional set, and combination in the field. Therefore, domestic drying equipment production enterprises should fully utilize the opportunity of China's accession to the WTO, strengthen technical exchanges, learn from and draw on advanced drying equipment and drying equipment from foreign countries, in order to accelerate the improvement of China's automation level and control, appearance quality, function set and combination, and reduce the trust of our products with foreign products to improve user trust. Therefore, drying equipment in China, not only in the domestic market, And it can be carried out in foreign markets. China is increasing the variety of production drying equipment, expanding the scale, level, and quality of products, and increasing market competitiveness. Especially, the Chinese government supports policies related to exports, and the production of drying equipment creates good external conditions for domestic enterprises, indicating that China's drying equipment has a good development prospect.

        Conversion of unit heat consumption and drying capacity of a dryer
        Heat consumption and production capacity are important indicators for grain drying machine experiments. However, due to the variability of environmental conditions, root food conditions, and drying medium conditions during the experiment, the test results are often not comparable. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the performance test data of the dryer to a recognized standard condition for comparison and calibration. This article is based on the experimental data of grain drying machines, referring to the domestic and foreign standards for root food drying machines, and conducting research and exploration on the conversion coefficient of unit heat consumption and production capacity of root food drying machines; Four conversion methods were summarized, and the calculation methods and steps of conversion coefficients for grain dryers under different environmental and grain conditions were analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages of each method were explained, and preliminary suggestions for conversion methods were proposed, providing a basis for the comparability of dryer test data and the improvement of dryer test standards.

        China is the world's largest grain producing country, with an annual total grain output of 500 million tons. Annual moldy losses of up to 5% are caused by seasonal weather conditions such as overcast and rainy weather, as well as insufficient drying equipment. After more than 30 years of development, China's grain drying equipment and technology have reached a certain level and played an important role in the modernization of agriculture. However, there is still a significant gap compared to the demand for drying equipment in China. Taking rice drying as an example, the total number of rice drying machines in Japan has reached 1.1 million, and the mechanization level of rice drying has reached over 90%. However, in China, less than 1% of rice is mechanically dried, and the number of rice drying equipment is less than 10000. The reasons for the above gap are multifaceted, among which the backward research on grain drying technology standards is also an important reason.

        At present, China still adopts the national standards of the 1980s (such as the testing methods for grain dryers and the technical conditions for grain drying), and some of the conditions and indicators are no longer suitable for the current development of dryers. For example, the existing standards lack a conversion method for the production capacity and unit heat consumption of dryers, and the indicators related to drying quality are not yet perfect and reasonable. Some indicators do not specify unified testing methods, and some indicators are relatively backward, Therefore, it restricts the development, promotion, and application of new equipment and processes for grain drying. The international standards for grain drying technology have been revised multiple times, such as 501 Qiao 20-1: 1997; Determination of the drying performance of agricultural grain dryers, such as 15011520-2:2 printing. In these new drying technology standards, there are conversion methods for main drying performance parameters, using dozens of models and formulas. As it is a complex and difficult problem to solve, there is no provision in this aspect in China's grain drying technology standards.

        Grain drying is a very complex processing process with multiple influencing factors and variable drying conditions. The influencing factors include medium parameters (such as hot air temperature, hot air flow rate, and hot air humidity), grain parameters (such as grain category, grain moisture, grain temperature, and grain flow rate), and environmental conditions (such as atmospheric temperature and humidity) Drying process (such as forward flow drying, counter flow drying, cross flow drying, mixed flow drying) and structural parameters of the dryer. A grain dryer may operate at very low ambient temperatures (minus 20 ℃) or under environmental conditions up to 30 ℃, with completely different or even vastly different working conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the measured performance indicators to a unified and recognized drying condition. The development of this standard requires extensive experimental verification of a series of parameters such as atmospheric temperature, atmospheric relative humidity, initial moisture content, final moisture content, precipitation amplitude, grain category, quality, heating method, hot air temperature, hot air relative humidity, hot air volume, drying method, etc. for different environmental and grain conditions. It is difficult to form a formal national standard.

        The most likely way to achieve results is to complete the research report, provide a conversion coefficient that is not entirely accurate, publish it as a guiding technical document for trial implementation, and then compare and evaluate it. Therefore, the conversion of dryer production capacity and unit heat consumption is a very important standard. Unit heat consumption and drying capacity are key indicators of grain drying equipment. For different types or the same type of grain drying equipment, when there are differences in their acceptance working conditions, they must be converted to standard working conditions through relevant conversion coefficients in order to determine and compare the unit heat consumption and drying capacity. At present, there is no unified standard for the conversion coefficient between unit heat consumption and drying capacity in China.

        This project will study the conversion coefficient and develop a unified national standard for the conversion coefficient. The conversion of unit heat consumption and drying capacity for grain drying has always been an important issue that hinders the performance evaluation and appraisal of grain drying machines; For many years, due to the large research workload and lack of research funding, this problem has not been solved. Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Reclamation Sciences proposed a solution, but it failed to become a national standard due to its inability to apply to multiple drying processes and models, as well as the unreasonable selection of standard conditions and models. On the basis of in-depth analysis and research on existing drying technology research results at home and abroad, the author has determined the standard drying conditions for conversion through experiments and theoretical analysis, and provided calculation methods and usage conditions for conversion coefficients of various drying models and different grain drying conditions.