Abstract

VELEZ-PIEDRAHITA, Santiago; CIRO-VELASQUEZ, Héctor; OSORIO-SARAZ, Jairo  and  LARGO-AVILA, Esteban. Study of the Effect of the Geometry of a Typical Solar Dryer for Coffee Using CFD. Rev. ing. univ. Medellín [online]. 2019, vol.18, n.35, pp.149-161. ISSN 1692-3324.  https://doi.org/10.22395/rium.v18n35a9.

The objective of the present investigation was to computationally model a typical solar dryer for coffee, considering some alternative geometric configurations in the opening of windows to improve the thermal conditions within the drying structure which enable the water removal process of wet parchment coffee. The model was simulated in Ansys CFX® software. Simulation results showed that the geometry with an opening of 25 % in the air output window increased temperature in the coffee layer to 4.2 °C over room temperature, guaranteeing uniform drying, whereas the typical geometry with a 100 % opening increased temperature to 3.8 °C. When the maximum window opening for input and output of air was used, the relative humidity of air within the dryer decreased in comparison with the other geometries.

Keywords : agroindustry; computational fluid dynamics; simulation; energy; temperature; radiation; solar dryer.

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