A study on contact drying with flexible screen

Three types of material as platen in contact drying process were tested in Composition Board Laboratory of Northeast Forestry University in 1998. Poplar veneers were dried under 0.3 MPa at 160°C or 180°C. Through comparison a non-metal flexible material was chosen as screen for designing contact dryer and replacing curved metal plate. The new type contact dryer solved the problem of long auxiliary time by loading wet veneers into press and unloading dried veneers out of press at the same time. This increased productivity. Veneer’s moisture content (MC) varied with drying time in index law. The process of contact drying with non-metal flexible screen was analyzed by stages of preheating, high-speed drying, retarded drying and extremely slow drying. Lu Renshu, male, born in 1932, professor, Industrial Collage of Forestry Products, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, P. R. China. Responsible editor: Chai Ruihai