Theoretical and experimental investigation of solar dryer for drying agricultural and food products in south india

Abstract

The shelf life of agricultural food products may be enhanced by newlinereducing their moisture contents, by means of a drying process. The design newlineand analysis of a mixed mode dryer and solar tunnel dryer for agricultural and newlinefood products namely, cotton, coconut, mango slice, citrus, tapioca etc and newlinebeef and fish and energy saving.In mixed mode solar dryer, matured cotton and coconut is dried newlinebefore the useful fiber material is separated out. Industries spend huge amount newlineof energy to dry cotton by controlling humidity and temperature. The aim of newlinethis first work is to evolve a mathematical modeling based on the newlineexperimental analysis of forced circulation, mixed mode solar dryer. Selected newlinemodels are evaluated by using EMD, ERMS, R2 and 2. It was concluded that newlineWang and Singh model is more suitable for the fabricated mixed mode solar newlinedryer at air flow rate 0.15 kg/s for cotton. A mixed mode solar dryer is newlinedesigned, fabricated and tested for its performance. The direct radiant solar newlineenergy and a convective hot air stream dry the products resulting in longer life newlinefor the products which are also free from impurities. It was concluded that newlinePage model is more suitable for the fabricated mixed mode solar dryer at air newlineflow rate 0.009 kg/s for coconut based on the experimental analysis. The newlinesimulation of neural network is also carried out newline newline