• Suraj S. Gavade
• Chinmay Patil
• Suraj Rishwadkar
• Prajwal Satao
• Basveashwar Patil

Drying of an agricultural product using conventional methods is energy and time consuming process. Solar energy is viable alternative for drying applications to overcome the losses and shortage of fossil fuels. In the present work, forced convection solar dryer has been designed, analyzed and developed for certain key experiments. Dryer consists of flat plate air collector with baffle plates, drying chamber with chimney arrangement and air blower. Air collector consists of 2.80 m2 total area. Numerical analysis of solar air collector is executed for fluid flow analysis of air and mass flow rate. From the result of numerical analysis, four baffles are used for creating turbulence in air heater and 0.013775 kg/s mass flow rate provided higher temperature. Using these results, solar dryer has been developed for drying the grapes (Super Sonaka) to produce raisin. Experimental result shows that dryer with turbulence having 7 to 8ºC temperature rise shown increase in the performance in the context of drying than without turbulence. Drying rate for grapes with turbulence was 48 sunshine hours whereas 56 hours for dryer without turbulence.

Solar Dryer, Turbulence, baffle plates, Optimized Experiments, Numerical Analysis, CFD, Raisin.

"Experimental and Numerical Studies of Forced Convection Solar Dryer with Turbulence and optimization for Agricultural Product (Raisin)", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 7, page no.79-89, July-2024, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRGM06013.pdf

"Experimental and Numerical Studies of Forced Convection Solar Dryer with Turbulence and optimization for Agricultural Product (Raisin)", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 7, page no. pp79-89, July-2024, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRGM06013.pdf