DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF SOLAR DRYER

A solar dryer was designed, fabricated and installed at Energy Centre, KLEF (Deemed to be University), Vaddeswaram, Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh for drying of chili. The Solar dryer mainly consists of a solar collector, drying chamber and an electric blower. The chilies are dried under the present weather conditions and in a sophisticated solar cabinet dryer. Readings of temperature (at the collector inlet, collector outlet and dryer outlet (exhaust), relative humidity (at collector inlet, collector outlet and dryer outlet (exhaust), air flow rate and mass of chilies in grams (i. e. in lower tray, second tray and upper tray) respectively in hourly basis have been recorded during the experiment. The obtained values are compared with the Open sun drying. ]The same weather conditions, it is observed that the chilies in the lower tray dried faster compared to the chilies kept in the remaining trays