Thermal Performance of a Direct-type Solar Fish Dryer with Forced Convection: A Combined Experimental Study and CFD Simulation

Debashree Debadatta Behera, Shiv Sankar Das, Ramesh Chandra Mohanty, Bijaya Bijeta Nayak

Abstract


Solar drying serves as a sustainable technique for food preservation through solar technology intervention. The main purpose of this investigation is to design and construct a high-performance forced convection direct-type solar dryer for drying fish products of 20 kg capacity in a hygienic condition. For validation of experimental results, a thermal analysis of the solar dryer has been performed through CFD simulation using ANSYS Fluent. The performance indicators, such as maximum drying rate, drying efficiency, and specific energy consumption, are evaluated as 0.85 kg/hr, 63.5%, and 1.005 kWh/kg respectively, at the highest mass flow rate of 0.019 kg/s. The coefficient of determination (R2) for drying chamber temperature variation is found to be above 99%, indicating a good correlation between parameters. The highest temperature of drying chamber at 1 PM from the experiment and simulation is evaluated as 60.3°C and 59.8°C respectively. The equivalent solar heat flux is determined as 649.5 W/m2 and 646.244 W/m2 respectively. It was found that there is a close correlation between the simulation and experiment result of temperature, with an error rate of less than 1%, and for solar heat flux, it is between 1% to 5%. This type of dryer can be extremely beneficial in providing sustainable energy to dry various food products because of its economic effectiveness. The dryer is currently utilized by fisherwomen in the coastal regions of South Odisha.

Keywords


Drying efficiency; Food preservation; Solar heat flux; Sustainable energy; Thermal performance

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.64289/iej.26.0206.2628730