Air flow investigations in direct type solar food dryer using computational fluid dynamics

Pankaj K. Gupta

Mechanical Engineering Department, Chhatrapati Shivaji Institute of Technology, Durg, Chhattisgarh, 491001, India.

Carbon – Science and Technology 8/2 (2016) 9 – 16. 

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Full Text (OPEN ACCESS) : CST-185.pdf

Keywords: solar dryer, food dryer, Computational fluid dynamics, solar drying

Abstract: Flow and temperature field inside a direct type solar dryer is investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The coupled field analysis is carried out in ANSYS Fluent 12.0. The effect of location of inlet and outlet vents on the predicted velocity and temperature field of the air inside the dryer is analyzed. It is observed that a more uniform air flow and temperature distributions results for inlet vent location at bottom wall of drying chamber.