Abstract:
This work reports a design and construction of
a drying chamber powered by parabolic trough
solar concentrator. The construc
ted drying chamber is made of thin aluminum sheet material
with two compartments; one is fo
r installation of standby electrica
l heaters and the other is for
material pallet. The chamber is powered by a para
bolic trough solar concen
trator with aperture
area of 5 m
2
. An electrical heater backup was employed to maintain the temperature inside the
chamber at a given constant temperature when
solar energy is not sufficient. The maximum
variation of the temperature insi
de the chamber along the length of
the material pallet was found
to be 8 °C when the chamber is powered by sola
r concentrator. This va
riation was 16 °C when
the chamber is powered by electric heaters. Temper
ature variation across the
vertical direction is
almost constant when the chamber is empty and a 10 % drop in temperature was observed over
the material pallet relative to the other areas. The drying characteristics of samples of cabbage,
boiled rice, scraped coconut, dry le
aves and grass for different te
mperatures obtained using the
drying chamber are found to be
fitted well with the page mode
l and the corresponding drying
constants at 80 °C are found to be 0.0197,
0.0139, 0.0319, 0.0296, 0.0564 respectively.
