The particle deposition behaviour of skim milk, water and maltodextrin in the conical section of a pilot-scale spray dryer was predicted using simple correlations for particle depositions in pipes. The predicted particle deposition fluxes of these materials were then compared with the measured deposition fluxes. The predicted particle deposition regimes of the spray dryer were expected to be in the diffusional and mixed (diffusional and inertial) regimes, but the experimental results suggested that the particle deposition was mainly in the inertial regime. Therefore, using the pipe correlations for predicting deposition in a pilot-scale spray dryer suggests that they do not sufficiently represent the actual deposition behaviour. This outcome indicates that a further study of particle flow patterns needs to be carried out using numerical simulations (computational fluid dynamics,CFD) in view of the additional geometrical complexity of the spray dryer.