A numerical simulation of a line-type paint drying furnace

Abstract

Purpose Paint drying is a very important process in an industry where shorter drying time for productivity and lower energy consumption for production cost are required while maintaining the product’s painting quality. In the present study, a drying process in a line-type paint drying furnace equipped with nozzles for hot air supply and moving conveyer belt to dry painted automotive parts is numerically simulated for the flow and heat transfer inside the furnace to evaluate the quality of the drying or baking at the end of the drying process in a production line. Design/methodology/approach A baking window for a specific paint is used for judging the local degree of baking (DOB) of the painted parts, which can be useful to identify under-baked or over-baked locations of the painted parts, and hence the quality of the baking process. Findings Numerical results of a time history of temperatures at two monitoring points on the painted parts were obtained and compared to the measured data in an actual furnace and showed good agreement. Three types of paints were considered in the present study and numerical results showed different drying characteristics. In addition to the original furnace nozzle configuration, two more furnace nozzle configurations with different numbers, direction and speed of hot air supply were simulated to improve the furnace’s drying performance. As a result, a newly suggested nozzle configuration with quick drying paint can give us a remarkable improvement in surface averaged DOB compared to the original nozzle configuration with original paint. Originality/value The present simulation technique and DOB methodology can be used for the optimal design of a drying furnace.

Numerical analysis of jet airflow impact inclined flat plate under electrohydrodynamics force in a porous medium

“…Complex coating processes can be approached through an examination of their fluid mechanical components. The flow elements reviewed in this article include the boundary layer along a moving wall, the dynamic wetting line, withdrawal from a pool, flow metered by a narrow channel, die flow, flow on an incline, the freely falling liquid curtain, premetered coating with a small gap and flow after coating (Steven and Kenneth, 2004;Lanzutti et al, 2011;Kiran, 2012;Choi et al, 2019). The target for the entire coatings system is to have drastically improved wet-adhesion due to a covalently bonded system that has a gradient in a composition that goes continuously from metal to metal oxide to the mixed metal oxide/ organic polymer to high-performance UV-stable organic polymer.…”