Numerical modelling of hot air multi-pass solar dryer
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Date
2014-07-06
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International Solar Energy Society Conference Proceedings
Abstract
This article presents the investigation of modeling solar drying system using partial differential equation module of MATLAB to predict the thermal conditions of a drying system with pebble beds as heat storage medium. A 2-dimensional geometry of the air heater was examined using both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions to define the heat transfer and temperature gradient at the walls of the system. Appropriate thermal equations were used to define the multi-layer drying system with specific properties of materials which have significant effect on the performance efficiency of the solar collector. Finite element method of meshing the system component was employed to solve the heat transfer equation. The dynamic
simulation of the air heater was tested for 5000 s at the average maximum daily temperature of 318 K with solar irradiation of 800 Wm-2. Despite five cabinet channels design, the temperature gradient of hot air distribution at various points was less than 1 K. The heat transfer simulation of the system has been achieved
in good agreement with the reported studies. However, the mass transfer aspect of the model still needs to be improved upon for better and accurate collector characterization.