Author:

Keywords:

solar food drier, transient heat transfer modelling, inlet configuration, CFD modelling

Abstract:

A truncated-pyramid shaped solar food drier insuring uniform drying is proposed. A 2D axisymmetric CFD model is developed to predict the air flow velocity and transient heat transfer within the drying chamber. The model is used as a tool to design optimum solar sweet potato driers by comparing two air inlet configurations to the drying chamber. The average flow velocity near the food is found to be 5 cm/s for a design with no inlet guide, which is about 6% higher than the one with a curved inlet guide. Furthermore, the design showed faster thermal evolution towards the steadily operating temperature (60℃), taking about 45 minutes.