EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS ON MIXED MODE SOLAR CROP DRYER

The present work explains the design, fabrication, and analysis of solar dryer with heat storage material. The mild was used as the heat storage material. By using the basic theory of energy balance, the numerical heat transfer analysis is made for the performance of the collector and comparison between experimental and numerical methods for the efficiency is described. The process of drying phenomenon is explained with the help of characteristic curves. The product used during the experiments was 4 kg chilly, 2 kg in the upper tray and 2 kg in the lower tray. The drying time required for the chilly at upper tray to reach safe moisture content level is 7 hours and chilly at lower tray had taken 8 drying hours to reach the safe moisture content. The maximum drying rate reported is 14.345 grams/minute and the minimum value is 0.898 grams/ minute. The maximum value of theoretical efficiency reported is 24.191 % and the minimum is 22.8 % whereas the maximum value of actual efficiency obtained is 17. 88 % and the minimum is 6.9 %.