Design of Direct Heating Thermal Dryer using Mineral Insulated Cable for Lithium Hydroxide Processing

The present study is about designing a direct heating dryer for drying secondary battery cathode materials. An efficient heating analysis method was proposed to evaluate the temperature, deformation, and stress of dryer components when increasing the dryer temperature using the direct heating method. The heating temperature of the thermal dryer was set to 250 °C, 300 °C, and 350 °C, and the temperature distribution was investigated through the heating analysis of the dryer, and its deformation and stress due to the high temperature were analyzed. The structural analysis confirmed that plastic deformation occurred at all of 250 °C, 300 °C, and 350 °C, as the yield strength was exceeded. Since the deformation and stress were repeated according to the reciprocating temperature as the dryer was heated and cooled, a low cycle fatigue analysis was performed to select a heating temperature considering an acceptable service life of the dryer. Considering the calculated fatigue life and working time, the dryer was designed with heating conditions to ensure a life of more than 1000 cycles.