Utilizing low temperatures and short drying cycles, the vacuum heat pump dryer (VHPD) is ideal for cannabis drying due to the plant's sensitivity to heat and light. To achieve uniform drying and maintain cannabis quality, it is essential to design the dryer with an efficient temperature distribution throughout the drying chamber. CFD models are developed in this study to simulate various scenarios within the VHPD system. The optimization of pressure and temperature is carried out using a systematic approach with the Latin Hypercube Sampling experimental design. This method generates twenty pairs of values for the pressure and temperature variables, confined to ranges of 20–40 kPa and 30–45 °C, respectively. To confirm the simulation results, an experimental study is performed using a VHPD designed from insights gained through a detailed CFD analysis. The conditions of 20.2 kPa at 31.6 °C are considered optimal due to their more uniform temperature distribution and lower static enthalpy relative to other conditions. The temperature in the upper chamber is maintained slightly lower, within the range of 30.5–31.5 °C. Furthermore, the airflow distribution demonstrates uniform movement within the central region of the chamber, with velocities ranging from 2.5 to 3.5 m/s. The simulated temperature results demonstrated a strong correlation with a temperature difference in the range of 0–0.05 °C, evidenced by an RMSE of 0.0191. The VHPD successfully dries 18 kg of fresh cannabis in 180 min, reaching the desired moisture content range of 10–14 % on a dry basis.
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