Proceedings of the 1986 International Congress on Renewable Energy Sources. Design, testing and evaluation of an improved low cost plastic solar crop dryer. International Congress on Renewable Energy Sources [18-23 Mayo 1986, Madrid].

Ambalavanan, G. Kunchithapatham, M. Kamaraj, G.
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

1987

1113
v. 2
CIENA

84-00-6674-X

Solar dryers are now becoming popular to dry agricultural produce. These dryers are to be designed with low cost and of portable nature so as to enable the poor rural public to utilise these dryers with increased annual duty, The dryers should also be able to work during non sunny hours with this in mind, the authors have designed and tested a portable low cost solar dryer with supplementary heating system. This dryer was fabricated under a joint venture under the Indo-US project financed by DNES, Government of India and USAID, USA. The solar dryer consists of a low cost suction type plastic solar collector connected to a vertical cylindrical column dryer through an axial flow blower. The plastic collector consist of the black polythene sheets spread on the ground with 75 mm thick husk insulation in between them. The black sheet acts as an absorber. The greenhouse transparent polythene sheet is covered over the m. s. trusses fixed over the entire length of collector. The dryer is made of concentric cylinders covered with wiremeshes. The paddy is loaded in the annular vertical column and is circulated by an elevator. The blower draws the hot air through the solar collector and force it through the dryer. The paddy thus gets dried. During non sunny hours, hot air is produced in a stepped grate husk fired furnace and forced through the dryer. Tests are conducted in the solar dryer and the performance of the solar dryer with and without supplementary heating system is evalued. The results are encouraging. ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR COLLECTOR. DESCRIPTION OF THE DRIER AND CONNECTIONG DUCT. Operation. RESULTS OF SOLAR PADDY DRIER. AUXILIARY HEATING SYSTEM. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS.

Presenta ilus. y tbls.

INDIA; ENERGIA SOLAR; SECADORAS SOLARES; DISEÑO; PRUEBAS; SECTOR AGRICOLA; COLECTORES SOLARES;