Design, construction and performance evaluation of solar maize dryer

الملخص EN

This paper presents the design, construction and performance evaluation of solar drying for maize, the solar drying system consists of V-groove collector of 2.04 m² area, Drying Chamber and blower.

It was designed in such a way that solar radiation is not incident directly on the maize.

K-type thermocouples were used for temperature measurement, while solar radiation was measured by (solar meter mod.776).

The thermal energy and heat losses from solar collector were calculated for each three angles tilt (30º, 45º, 60º).

The results obtained during the test period denoted that the maximum gained energy occurred at 11 o'clock hour and then gradually declined since the maximum solar radiation occurred at this time.

The performance of the solar drying system was highly dependent on the solar radiation, angle tilt and ambient temperature.