Design and Development of Solar Crop Dryer Integrated with Oil Bath

S Premkumar ,K Ramanarasimha ,E.s Prakash

doi:10.5829/ijee.2018.09.04.08

Abstract

This work presents the design and development of solar crop dryer with drained SAE 20/40 from vehicles oil as heat storage material. The details design, fabrication and experimental analysis procedure of the developed dryer are explained. The crops used during the experiments were potato slices (2 kg) and ginger (2 Kg) while air velocity maintained at 10 m/s. Potato slices of upper and lower trays have taken the drying time of 5 hours and 6 hour to reach safe storage moisture content of below 15 % and whereas ginger of upper tray and lower tray have taken drying time of 9 and 10 hours to reach moisture content of below 15. The maximum value of instantaneous of the collector (Oil bath) efficiency reported was 57. 48 % and minimum value was 18.59 %.

Highlights

The complete experimental setup was fabricated by using low cost materials available at local market, galvanised iron sheet of 0.5 mm thickness is used to develop oil bath and drying chambers and transparent glass cover of 5 mm thickness is used to reduce reradiating losses and to maximise the rate solar energy collection, inside exposed surfaces of both the chambers are coated with black
In the potato slices the surface structure is made of less number of fibres whereas in the ginger surface structure is made of more number of small fibres and this structure causes obstacle to the water to flow from inner surfaces to the outer surfaces to get evaporated
The present work explains the design, fabrication and experimental analysis of a solar drying system integrated with oil bath

Summary

Introduction

Solar drying is a simple method and sun’s energy is available at free of cost. Common crop drying method practised from ancient time is by spreading product to be dried over a platform or plane surface and product is directly exposed to the rays of sun, moisture evaporation takes place due to heat of sun’s rays and due to flow of atmospheric air over the product surface.

Results

Conclusion