PROGRAMA COMPUTACIONAL PARA SIMULAÇÃO DE SECAGEM DE GRÃOS

Abstract

A computer program was developed in Clipper/dbase IV language to simulate the drying of agricultural products (rice, coffee, beans, maize, soybean and wheat). The program was written containing alternatives to determine the psychometric properties of ambient air as function of the dry bulb temperature (Tdb) and wet bulb temperature (Twb), or dry bulb temperature (Tdb) and relative humidity (RH) of the air and also for the conditions of air heating from 1 to 150 o C. The program allows the simulation of drying in fixed-bed dryers using the Thompson model. For the case of maize it also permits the simulation by the Hukill model. The program is further able to simulate the drying of maize in cross flow and concurrent flow dryers. It is a very versatile program, which allows for the introduction of other grains, although requiring specific knowledge of the product equations. In this paper, the simulations for the drying of rice, coffee, beans, maize, white maize, soybean and wheat were tested, leading to the conclusion that the simulation models are adequate to simulate the values obtained experimentally by various authors for these six products, for drying air temperature varying from 25 to 80 o C.