Dimensional Analysis of a Corn Grains Drying Process in a Continuous Dryer Including Inert Particles

A dimensionless model was developed and evaluated for drying of corn grain in a continuous countercurrent dryer based on dimensional analysis technique. Parameters of drying air temperature, drying air velocity, velocity of drying products through the drying bin, application ratio of inert particles to the grains at input of bin, each of them at three levels, sampling depth of grains (at five levels) and sampling time (at four levels) were applied to evaluate this dryer. For developing a dimensionless model, five independent pi terms were identified and then the best model that include the effect of all the independent pi terms on the dependent pi terms was derived and evaluated. Determination of coefficient of modeling, mean bias error and root mean square of error were 0.85, 0.0648 and 0.018 respectively.