DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A NATURAL CONVECTION SOLAR DRYER | ||||
Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
Article 1, Volume 28, Issue 5, May 2003, Page 3967-3982 PDF (1.3 MB) | ||||
Document Type: Original Article | ||||
DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2003.244173 | ||||
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Author | ||||
M. M. EI-Kholy, | ||||
Researcher, Div. of Handling and Processing of Agrlc. Crops | ||||
Abstract | ||||
A simple solar dryer has been developed and tested for drying high moisture rough rice at the experimental farm of Rice Mechanizati n Center (R.M.C). Meet EI-Oyba. Kafr EI-Sheikh Governorate. The dryer used solar heated air passing by natural c nvection through a bed of paddy, and from solar radiation incident on the top of the bed. The results showed that, drying started simultaneously at the top and bottom of the bed, while the middle layer dried slowest. Periodic stirring of the bed of paddy reduced the drying time by about 4 hours and led to a uniform grain moisture content at different layers of the drying bed. The recorded drying times for solar drying with stirred and unstirred bed were 22 and 26 hours respectively as compared with 46 hours for natural sun drying in open mats. A significant improvement in final quality of grain dried by the solar dryer was obvious as compared with the grain dried in open mats specially broken percentage of milled rice which decreased by about 3.59% for stirred bed and 2.41% for unstirred bed. | ||||
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