Transport phenomena study in a solar spouted bed dryer within a draft tube

Abstract

This research investigated a high drying rate solar dryer with low‐intensity energy consumption. In a brief issue, the solar spouted bed dryer was designed, fabricated and tested through this study. To cover this purpose, a 1D dynamic model was developed for this dryer's bed section. The mentioned accurate model is able to predict this type of solar dryer behavior which includes mass, momentum and energy transfer phenomena. The mentioned model solves the governing equations‐mass, momentum, and energy balance equations‐simultaneously using MATLAB software. By this system test pilot modeling and experiments, Design and manufacture of a high drying rate solar dryer with low energy intensity are achieved. Comparison between the model and experimental results shows that the maximum error percentage related to output profiles were approximately less than 3.6% that consider an appropriate band of errors. Based on experiments, the system is able to eliminate 85,500 mg water from 150 g corn grains during 90 min test interval. The considerable achievement contributed to the energy consumption intensity is equal to 93.3 kJ/g of corn, which can be a valuable energy heat rate. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 488–497, 2018