Modeling convective and intermittent drying of agricultural products

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to quantify the energetic interest of convective and intermittent drying process of natural products. This drying mode has been achieved within a climatic blower. This laboratory device permitted us to achieve several tests for different conditions of drying for apples, carrots and peppers. This study permitted to appreciate the capacity of the model to describe the different drying periods. In the continuous case, a variation of the air velocity permitted us to find the most economic velocity for the drying of thin layer products. In the intermittent case, the numerical simulation profiles give us more information on what happens really to the product during periods of stop. Besides, the drying kinetics at the retaking increases with the air temperature. Then, we gain in energy and in global drying time.