Thermal Analysis of a Solar Dryer with Parabolic Collector

Abstract

A nation’s economic development can be measured by the capacity to effectively and efficiently convert energy resources into useful energy. Solar energy is an abundant energy in our country all year long. Burkina Faso is a country which has a very significant potential for sunshine almost all year round. Therefore, it is advantageous to create devices that will work through this energy resource. These devices can be used for many applications in thermal solar field like heating, cooking and drying. The parabolic trough type dryer is a device consisting of three elements: the concentrator, the collector and the drying chamber. It produces heat through the flow of air by natural convection within it. This device has the role of drying agricultural products. In this work, our task was to carry out temperature measurements of the air inside the parabolic collector solar dryer to determine the types of agricultural products that it can dry. The thermal behavior of the air inside the parabolic solar collector dryer is analyzed. The results show that the temperature of the air at the inlet of the collector increases by 9°C after passing through it and then decreases slightly before reaching the drying chamber. The difference in air temperature between the positions of rack 1 and 2 varies between 2°C to 3°C.