Design, development and performance evaluation of a fluidized bed paddy dryer

Abstract

In this study a fluidized bed paddy dryer has been developed and its performance was investigated. Thefuel used for generation of heat required for drying is wood rejects. In order to investigate the performanceof the dryer, the experiments were performed at four different inventories and at three different airvelocities. The locally available paddy variety “Ranjit” was used for experiments. The drying airtemperature was maintained within 58-62 °C to retain all the nutrients content. The change in nutritionalvalues was also determined at different drying times viz. at 0, 5 and 10 minutes from the start of theexperiment and found to decrease with drying time as compared to the fresh sample. From the experimentit is evident that the drying rate increases with increase of air velocity and found to be optimum at an airvelocity of 23.60 m/s.