Integration of a Malt Drying Model into a Malt Plant Scheduling Software

Malting is a very intensive, energy-consuming process and, from the point of view of energy, green malt drying is one of the most important operations. Double-deck kiln drying, a variant of single-deck kiln drying, is the most commonly used process, but it is usually manually controlled under empirical control actions. These are the reasons why a research project was carried out based on the computer modeling of these process operations including a software tool named CIMFOOD. A knowledge-based system (KBS) allowing the entire processing-plant dynamic behavior simulation and scheduling concerning thermal energy requirements was developed.