Low cost natural convection solar dryer for drying durian tree wood

• Main Author: Ngah Nasaruddin, Afiqah
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20526/1/Low%20Cost%20Natural%20Convection%20Solar%20Dryer%20For%20Drying%20Durian%20Tree%20Wood.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20526/2/Low%20cost%20natural%20convection%20solar%20dryer%20for%20drying%20durian%20tree%20wood.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20526/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=105996

The study is about developing and evaluating the performance of natural convection mode of solar dryer by the application of indirect solar energy to dry a durian tree wood. The main idea for the study is to come with the alternative replacement of the old method of open sun drying system with the one that offer low capital cost, less time required for drying, secured and more efficient in term of performance. Previously researcher has identified several parameter that affect the performance of the solar dryer mainly based on the design, load, absorber, chimney and location of the study that affect weather condition. Apart from that, from the evaluation of performance of the solar dryer show that it is capable for the solar air collector to reach efficiency of 4.72 when the average temperature of C is recorded based on the calculation. While, the time required for a thin layer of durian tree wood to dry using open sun drying is approximately four hours compared to only 2 hours and 20 minute when using designated solar dryer. Result for the simulation of solar dryer using both ANSYS and TRNSYS software is showing that the expected temperature for the ideal condition of solar dryer while the economical analysis on solar dryer gave the payback period of 22 days and ROI of 41.6 %. The validation of the result is made by comparing the maximum, minimum and the average temperature obtain from simulation using software and the experiment which proves that the experimental results are being verified despite a small reasonable difference.