Thermal Investigation and Food Quality Analysis on a Solar Tunnel Drier

摘要

A comprehensive study carried out in a solar drierin regards to thermal performance and food quality isappended in this paper. A lab-scale solar drier has been designedand tested for thermal performance, economics, andfood quality. The drying temperature ranged between 32 and54 °C. Ivy gourds were chosen for drying experiment, and thedried products were subjected to color and texture analysis.The color deviation (ΔE) for solar dried and open sun-driedsamples was 4.59 and 10.1, respectively. The hardness of solardried and open sun-dried sample was 84.29 and 30.87 N, respectively.The economic analysis was done by three methods.The annualized cost method showed that the cost of dryingunit weight of product using solar tunnel drier was 10.94and using conventional drier was 17.39. The payback periodof the drier was estimated to be 3.5 years with a lifetimesavings of 397,011.00.