Cylinder drying of cut strips is one of the key technologies during the cigarette manufacturing process, which involves complex mass transfer and heat transfer phenomena. In order to study the actual cut strip heating and heat distribution in the cylinder drying process, on the basis of obtained accurate temperature data of cut strips inside cylinder dryer, a thermodynamic model for cut strips during cylinder drying was established as viewed from the actual cut strip heating inside the cylinder dryer. The relationships of technical parameters of cylinder drying with heat for water evaporation in cut strips Q_v, heat for temperature rising of cut strips Q_s, total heat quantity Q and thermal efficiency coefficient ƞ were investigated with canonical correlation analysis. The results showed that: (1) the established thermodynamic model well explained the actual cut strip heating and heat distribution in the cylinder drying process, and the variation coefficients of the four thermophysical parameters of cut strips under the same processing conditions were all less than 5.0 %; (2) the cylinder wall temperature in the first section and hot air temperature significantly positively correlated to the heat for water evaporation, the cylinder wall temperature in the second section significantly positively correlated to heat for temperature rising of cut strips, and the throughput of cut strips significantly negatively correlated to heat for temperature rising of cut strips. It is proved that the established thermodynamic model for cut strips during cylinder drying is feasible.