M. Manoj et al.

, International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology

E-ISSN 0976-3945

Research Paper

SIMULATION OF SOLAR DRYER UTILIZING GREEN HOUSE EFFECT FOR COCOA BEAN DRYING
M.Manoj1, A. Manivannan2

Address for Correspondence

Department of Energy Engineering, Regional Centre, Anna University Tirunelveli Region, Tirunelveli-627 007. 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Energy Engineering, Regional Centre, Anna University Tirunelveli Region, Tirunelveli627 007.
1

ABSTRACT
Drying is an excellent way to preserve food and solar food dryers are appropriate food preservation technology for sustainable development. The aim of the work is to develop a MATLAB-based modeling and simulation to predict the air flow properties, equilibrium moisture content of the solar dryer technology for food crop drying especially cocoa and other cash crops. In the model practical and technological ways by which the Crank Nicholson equation is applied to heat equations using finite difference method to develop a solar dryer utilizing Green House Effect (GHE) for drying cocoa beans. The mathematical model for the general case of the 3D (three-dimensional) conduction equation for green house dryer has been derived and simulated by Matlab program.The results show that the dryer performed at it optimal range and dried beans within 7 days to a moisture content of 7% to the weight of the bean. A mathematical model was developed to predict the performance of the green house effect type solar dryer and the 3D modeling was drawn using ProE. KEYWORDS: Cocoa, Green house effect, MATLAB, Simulation, Solar dryer.

I. INTRODUCTION Cocoa beans are the seeds of Theobroma cacao (Sterculiaceae family), a tropical tree which is grown mostly in the wet tropical forest climate countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Brazil and Malaysia. The three varieties are Trinitarios Forasteros, and Criollos; but Criollos has become negligible in world trade. Cocoa is used in the production of milk chocolate, chocolate bars, cocoa powder, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. The cocoa shells are used for stock feed and manure. It is also a source of theobromine, vitamin D and shell fat. The pod contains rich in potash and is used for soap production. Then, after harvesting of ripe cocoa pods, fresh cocoa beans are fermented for 5-7 days and dried immediately after fermentation to safe moisture level of 7.5% (wet basis). At these stages the cocoa beans undergo various chemical and biochemical changes that form the necessary flavour precursors needed during processing. Drying is usually carried out using natural sun drying. The solar powered cocoa bean dryer has advantage over the traditional method of drying because it brings more hygienic way of drying cocoa beans in lesser time, with less foreign materials.

processing, statistics and data analysis, control design and mathematical modeling. Technical computing with MATLAB allowed us to accelerate our research work, costs, reduce development time and deliver better cocoa products[21]. II. DESCRIPTION OF A GREEN HOUSE EFFECT SOLAR DRYER The initial cost of a solar drying system can be further reduced by using a Green House Effect(GHE) mechanism since the function of solar collector unit can be substituted by transparent structure which also simultaneously function as the drying chamber . The entire wall is made of transparent materials such as fiberglass, UV stabilized plastic or polycarbonate sheets. The transparent sheets are fixed on steel frame support or pillars with bolts and nuts and rubber packing to prevent humid air leaking into the chamber other than those introduced from the opening of the inlet. Blackened steel plates is provided to enhanced solar radiation absorption within the structure and are located either on the upper section of the structure or at both sides near the wall. Based on the type of commodity to be dried, cabinets or drying bin the racks can be placed at the center section of the transparent structure so that maximum access to drying air can be obtained. Inlet and exhaust fan are placed at proper position within the structure to ensure even distribution of the drying air within the chamber. can be installed. Whenever necessary, auxiliary heating system using kerosene stove with heat exchanger unit can also be installed.

Fig 1: Cocoa beans.

In this work, the technological ways by which the green house type of solar dryer is used in drying cocoa beans is modeled and simulated using MATLAB programming. The software for modeling and simulation was MATLAB R2010a. With a Pentium IV that had processor speed of 2.0 GHz, RAM of 2.O GB and hard disk drive of 520 GB. MATLAB was selected as the modeling and simulation software because it produces immediate access to good performance of numerical computing. The functionality of MATLAB is extended with interactive graphical capability for creating images, surfaces, plots and volumetric representation. Furthermore, toolbox algorithms enhance MATLAB functionality in domains such as signal and image
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Fig 2: The greenhouse solar dryer.

III. GREEN HOUSE EFFECT SOLAR DRYER A solar dryer with greenhouse as a collector is shown in Fig.3. It consists of a greenhouse of length 50 m, as a collector linked to a wooden stack chamber. The solar dryer has trays stacked inside a wooden shed. Trays of size 2 m x 2 m are fixed in the wooden chamber to spread cocoa beans. The fan and plastic film together forms an efficient solar collector system that shows no need of separate collector unit, which

M. Manoj et al., International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology

E-ISSN 0976-3945

can increase the air temperature inside the greenhouse by about 250C. Heated air inside the greenhouse passes through the trays stacked in the wooden chamber. With respect to obtain a regular air flow through the trays, a fan is placed on the rear side of the stack chamber. For practical purpose of loading, the size of the dryer shed is fixed at 2 m3. In order to avoid saturation of the outlet air and to keep the water gradient of the cocoa beans small, the length of the shed is maintained at 2 m. It is observed that recycling of air is not financially viable in this type of dryer.

Fig 3: 2D of Green House Solar Dryer.

IV. EQUATIONS TO SOLVE PDE IN PDE TOOL BOX OF MATLAB The system was assumed to be in a steady flow process and thus the mass flow rate of dry air remains constant during the entire process. The numerical solution of Partial Differential Equations is a topic of great importance in science and engineering because of many applications. Finite Volumes, Finite Differences, Finite Elements, Boundary Elements are among the most valuable numerical tools that we can use in order to approximate the theoretical solution with a numerical one. Suppose that we have to solve the 1-D (one-dimensional) conduction equation. (1) We consider the grid of the points , as a discretization of the continuous space of x,t of R2 where the function f(i1,i2) which approximates the f(x,t). These finite difference scheme suffers from convergence problems, errors and instability, therefore another better method the so called CrankNicholson method is applied. The Crank-Nicholson method for the general case of the 3-D (threedimensional) conduction equation is applied to the parabolic equation:

where h1,h2,h3 and are the steps of discretization with respect to x,y,z,t. The equation 3 has the numerical scheme which is the Crank-Nicholson method of the 3-D conduction equation is an implicit numerical scheme because the values at the previous time step which are not readily available. This needs us to solve a set of simultaneous linear equations at every time step. The Crank-Nicholson method is superior to finite difference scheme, because of accuracy, stability and convergence [19]. The simulated graph of equation 3 is shown in figure 4 and 5 explains the heat conduction mechanism during drying of the beans. V. MATHEMATICAL MODELING A mathematical model was developed for foretelling the performance of this type of green house effect solar dryer. 1. Mass of water to be lost from the product. The mass of water to be lost from the product is, 100 where mw = Mass of water loss mc = Mass of product to be dried wi = Initial moisture content 0

wf = Final moisture content 2. The mass flow rate of air. The mass flow rate of air is, where Air flow rate=Air flow x Drying area Specific volume is obtained from psychometric chart. 3. The amount of moisture removed per hour. The amount of moisture removed per hour is, where HRI = Humidity Ratio Increase HRA= Humidity Ratio of Air 4. The approximate time for the cocoa beans to be dried using the green house solar dryer. The drying time is calculated using the formula

A point that does not belong to the grid of the points (i1,i2,i3,i4) is considered. It is the , , , at this point we approximate to numerical scheme below:
, , , ,, , , , ,

(2)

Where mw=Mass of water loss MR=Amount of moisture removed 5. Pickup efficiency. The pickup efficiency is given by

where

11,2,3,411,2,3,421,2,3,4112 1,21,3,41,21,3,421,2,3,422 1,21,3,4111,2,3,4121,2,3, 41221,2,31,41,2,31,421,2, 3,4321,2,31,411,2,31,412 1,2,3,41321,2,3,411,2,3,4

(3)

ho =absolute humidity of air leaving the drying chamber hi = absolute humidity of air entering the drying chamber ha = adiabatic saturation humidity of the air entering the dryer.

VI. 3D MODELING OF GREEN HOUSE SOLAR DRYER

Fig 4: 3D modeling of green house dryer in ProE. IJAET/Vol. IV/ Issue II/April-June, 2013/24-27

M. Manoj et al., International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology

E-ISSN 0976-3945

VII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In MATLAB the partial differential equations (PDE) Toolbox was used to build system of equations to model heat conduction of drying cocoa beans from Crank-Nicholson method and obtaining numerical approximation for the solution and the results as shown in the fig.5. The direction of heated airflow is indicated as red arrows. The pink colour indicates evaporated moisture and blue and green as equilibrium moisture.
Fig 8: Drying Rate from 50% to 7% Moisture. The simulated graph in fig.9 shows the drying rate of the cocoa beans with initial moisture content of 60% to dried beans of moisture 7% of the weight.

Fig 5: Simulation in PDE Toolbox

a) DEHYDRATION RATES FROM MATLAB SIMULATION The parabolic graph of three-dimensional heat conduction simulation for drying cocoa beans in the dryer from the Crank-Nicholson method is shown in fig.6.

Fig 9: Drying Rate from 60% to 8% Moisture.

The simulated graph in fig.10 shows the drying rate of the cocoa beans with initial moisture content of 70% to dried beans of moisture 7% of the weight.

Fig 10: Drying Rate from 70% to 10% Moisture.

Fig 6: Crank-Nicholson 3-D Dehydration of Cocoa Beans.

Fig.7 shows the dehydration curve for simulated cocoa beans drying. The section of the straight line (A, B) represents the constant temperature till the latent heat of vaporization of water is reach. The falling curve (B, C), shows the rate of water evaporated with respect to temperature, to a corresponding critical moisture content of 7.5%.

c) Combined drying rates The simulated graph in fig.11 shows the combined drying rate of the cocoa beans with initial moisture content of 50%, 60% and 70% of the weight. The rose colour indicates the initial moisture of 70% and final moisture of 10% of the weight after drying. The green colour indicates the initial moisture of 60% to final moisture 8% of the weight after drying. The blue colour indicates the 50% initial moisture and final moisture 7% of the weight after drying. X max indicates the total time of drying of beans 84 hours. Y min indicates the moisture at 7% of cocoa beans. This represents that the cocoa beans with moisture content of 50% are the perfect choice for this dryer. Therefore, the dryer performed at it optimal range and dried beans within 7 days to a moisture content of 7% to the weight of the beans.

Fig 7: Dehydration Rates in Solar Dryer.

b) Drying rates The simulated graph in fig.8 shows the drying rate of the cocoa beans with initial moisture content of 50% to dried beans of moisture 7% of the weight.
IJAET/Vol. IV/ Issue II/April-June, 2013/24-27

Fig 11: The Combined Drying Rate of Cocoa Beans.

M. Manoj et al., International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology

E-ISSN 0976-3945

VIII. CONCLUSION The MATLAB coding was developed for the simulation of solar dryer for drying cocoa beans from the Crank-Nicholson method using PDE Toolbox in MATLAB and the simulation is done in MATLAB version 10a.From the simulation results it is concluded that the dryer performed at it optimal range and dried beans within 7 days to a moisture content of 7% to the weight of the bean. The drying processes of greenhouse solar dryer were enhanced by the heated air at very low humidity. It is the most hygienic drying way; cocoa processing companies need not blow ambient air through beans to remove foreign materials. Hence reducing time, production cost and cocoa dried in the dryer would give cocoa of grades one and two which meet international standard. REFERENCES
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