Modeling grain drying as discharge of an RC electrical circuit

摘要

This work presents a grain-drying model based on the hypothesis that the grain-drying process is similar to the discharge of an electric system formed of RC circuits arranged in parallel. The model for moisture removal can be represented by a sum of exponential terms, adjusted to the experimental data from the dehydration of the product under investigation. Using this analogy, physical meaning was attributed to each parameter involved in the drying equation. The number of RC circuit branches in the electric system is equal to the number of exponential terms of the drying equation. In the cases investigated (soybean and sunflower seed), the adjusted equations to express the time variations of the product moisture were composed of the sum of two exponential terms, which are equivalent to the removal of two types of water during the drying process.