EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF A NATURAL CONVECTION SOLAR DRYER WITH A REFLECTOR

A medium scale indirect type solar dryer with mirror booster was designed and developed for drying cashew nuts under the climatic condition Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India. The performance test of the dryer was carried out in forced mode by the combination of with and without a reflector. Moisture content, drying rate, collector efficiency and drying efficiency during its operation have been estimated and compared with sun drying. The fabricated dryer is capable of attaining drying temperature between 41ºC and 60ºC. In natural convection mode with reflecting unit, the required moisture content was obtained in 9.5 hours which is 0.5 hrs less than the without a reflector. The average drying efficiency of cashew nut dried in a solar dryer with reflector was 6 %.