Thermal behavior modeling of a cabinet direct solar dryer as influenced by sensible heat storage in a fractured porous medium

Abstract

Numerical simulation method has been employed to improve the thermal performance of cabinet direct solar dryer. The present study focused on the numerical simulation of a direct solar dryer with integration of a flat layer of fractured porous medium above the absorber plate in the aim to store thermal energy by sensible heat. Several calculations were conducted, using the finite volume method with a two-dimensional unsteady model implemented in the Fluent CFD software. The porous medium has been integrated with different thickness to show the influence of the medium thickness on the thermal performance of solar dryer. Different kinds of materials have been tested and studied. The effect of porosity of porous medium has been studied. The obtained results showed that the temperature of drying air is increased by 4°C with integration of porous medium. The increasing in the thickness of the porous medium by 1cm leads to increase the temperature of drying air by 2°C. The increasing of the medium porosity by 10% leads to decrease the temperature of drying air by 1°C. The best material is the one that has a highest specific heat and thermal conductivity.Numerical simulation method has been employed to improve the thermal performance of cabinet direct solar dryer. The present study focused on the numerical simulation of a direct solar dryer with integration of a flat layer of fractured porous medium above the absorber plate in the aim to store thermal energy by sensible heat. Several calculations were conducted, using the finite volume method with a two-dimensional unsteady model implemented in the Fluent CFD software. The porous medium has been integrated with different thickness to show the influence of the medium thickness on the thermal performance of solar dryer. Different kinds of materials have been tested and studied. The effect of porosity of porous medium has been studied. The obtained results showed that the temperature of drying air is increased by 4°C with integration of porous medium. The increasing in the thickness of the porous medium by 1cm leads to increase the temperature of drying air by 2°C. The increasing of the medium porosity by 10...