Design, development and CFD modeling of indirect solar food dryer

Demissie, Petros; Hayelom, Mesele; Kassaye, Amanuel; Hailesilassie, Asfafaw; Gebrehiwot, Mekonnen Gebreslasie; Vanierschot, Maarten

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2019.01.278

Cited by 53 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…In the second study, on the other hand, the system was evaluated under forced convection, and the experimental and CFD temperature was measured at the outlet of the dryer. Consequently, these differences are within the acceptable limits in our case as stated by [14]. 9 International Journal of Photoenergy…”

Section: Cfd Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

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Experimental and CFD Investigation of a Modified Uneven-Span Greenhouse Solar Dryer in No-Load Conditions under Natural Convection Mode

Mellalou

Riad

Hnawi

et al. 2021

International Journal of Photoenergy

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An uneven-span modified greenhouse dryer was constructed and tested in no-load conditions under natural convection mode under the weather conditions of Marrakech, Morocco, for two distinct days. Moreover, a CFD evaluation of the uneven-span greenhouse dryer was performed as tool to visualize the air temperature distribution inside the dryer. For validating the CFD model, the temperature variations along the hours of the day were compared to the experimental results. A good agreement is obtained between the computed and measured inside air temperature with a difference not exceeding 8.46°C, with a correlation coefficient ( r ) and root mean square percentage deviations ( e ) 0.94 and 8.17, respectively. Furthermore, the maximum inside air temperature was measured to be 56°C and 52°C while the minimum inside relative humidity was measured to be 17% and 12%, for day-1 and day-2, respectively. The benefice of using asphalt as a floor covering material was revealed as an efficient way to heat the inside air at low solar radiations. The performances of the dryer were evaluated by the percentage of net heat gain variation as a way to validate the effectiveness of the dryer. This latter is found to be equal to 46% and 48% for the two days, respectively.

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Section: Cfd Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Their empirical and numerical simulation results are found to be in good agreement. Demissie et al [14] employed CFD for the prediction of the air flow and temperature distribution inside an indirect food dryer. They found that the maximum average temperature difference between the CFD simulation and measurement was 4.3°C.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and CFD Investigation of a Modified Uneven-Span Greenhouse Solar Dryer in No-Load Conditions under Natural Convection Mode

Mellalou

Riad

Hnawi

et al. 2021

International Journal of Photoenergy

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“…An indirect forced convection solar dryer was investigated by Demissiea et al (2019) using 3D CFD simulation method. They predicted the flow and temperature distribution within the drying chamber numerically and compared their values with experimental measurements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar dryer performance simulation: Experimental and numerical study

Mehdipour

Ghaffari

2021

J Food Process Engineering

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In this study, effect of solar irradiation and suction head on an indirect cabinet solar dryer performance is investigated experimentally and numerically. In this regard, a specific experimental apparatus consisting a collector, heaters and adjustable chimney is fabricated to measure the air flow velocity and temperature at collector outlet in various irradiance (300, 400, 500, 600, 800, and 1,000 W/m2) and chimney height (1.85, 2.05, 2.25, and 2.55 m). In addition to the above abilities of experimental setup, more accurate thermal and hydraulic results are achieved. The obtained results are useful to the field since there are many defects in available simulations of collector. Some of the defects concerns incomplete prediction of thermal losses to the environment, ignoring secondary flows and vortices formed by velocity increment through the collector, etc. In the present study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used for modeling the drying chamber utilizing the pressure jump method and simulating the mass transfer phenomenon by a heat source. The results for the studied case (grape as to‐be‐dried product) as an example, show that the solar irradiation augmentation leads to the temperature and velocity increment while the suction head increment leads to an increasing‐decreasing behavior for the temperature. It is also demonstrated that by increasing the solar irradiation from 300 to 1,000 W/m2, the thermal efficiency of the collector and drying chamber increase from 42.92% to 64.31% and 10.08% to 15.15% respectively and the drying time of grapes reduces from 216 hr to 143 hr. Practical Applications The present study experimentally and numerically investigates a solar dryer for the specific application of grape drying although it can be applied for drying a wide types of fruits. The experimental part of the accomplished research is similar with solar chimney in a way that the present experimental results can be used for solar chimneys too. Based on the obtained results, the drying time as well as the air flow has been improved by applying the suggested drying method.

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“…9) of the dryer which showed an accurate prediction of the model and the overcast weather predicted moisture removal was 32% less than the simulated fair-weather case. Other studies analyzed the distribution of temperature and air velocity inside cabinet solar dryers using CFD (Ghaffari and Mehdipour, 2015, Darabi et al, 2015, Alqadhi et al, 2017, Abhay et al, 2018, Tegenaw et al, 2019a, Sanghi et al, 2018, P. Mutabilwa and Nwaigwe, 2020. Valarmathi ( 2018) performed computational fluid dynamics analysis on greenhouse solar dryers for free and forced convection processes to analyze the average temperature distribution of the dryer.…”

Section: Cfd Model Solution Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, CFD modeling is very essential in this aspect to explicitly describe the drying process. So far, very few works of CFD modeling and simulation of solar dryers have been reported (Romero et al, 2014a, Amanlou and Zomorodian, 2010, Ghaffari and Mehdipour, 2015, Prakash et al, 2016, Sonthikun et al, 2016, Tegenaw et al, 2017, 2019aand 2019b. The aim of this review is to see most recent development, opportunities and challenges in macroscale CFD modelling and simulation of the solar drying of fruits and vegetables focusing on drying time, drying rate, drying uniformity, dryer design and quality attributes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%