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Abstract
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This study aims to investigate the performance of an indirect solar dryer for drying various materials under different operational conditions. The system consists of a solar air collector (SAC) equipped with a v-corrugated absorber plate and a drying chamber with four perforated plates. Complicated multiphysics processes such as fluid flow, simultaneous heat, and moisture transport, as well as optical analysis of the SAC during a typical daytime, are involved in the system performance investigation. A functional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is proposed for the system. The model is validated with available experimental data. The obtained results reveal that when the inlet air flow rate increases from 100 to 400 m3/h, the average hot air temperature at the SAC outlet decreases from 62.9 to 46.6 °C, and the moisture ratio at the end of the process for potato, carrot, and apple are increased up to 116.95, 126.70, and 118.77%, respectively. The best performance of the system is achieved at an optimal value of the SAC tilt angle approximately equal to the latitude of the system installation location; under these conditions, the amount of reduction in moisture ratio for the apple at the end of the drying process boosts up to 9.3%.
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