Modeling and Designing of a Primary Plan for a Solar Flat Plate Air Collector to Provide the Necessary Heat for a Cereal Dryer: Case Study, Corn Grain

One of the applications of solar systems in agriculture is in product dryers. Drying of agricultural products after harvesting stage is one of the major units operations in order to increase the length of storage and maintain its quality. The purpose of this research is to model and design a solar flat plate air collector in order to supply the energy need of a grain drying warehouse with an area of 36 square meters and assumed capacity of 1.5 tons of corn for each loading. The amount of the required energy to reduce the moisture content of corn (from 23% to 13%)  was calculated as 961.1 MJ/1.5 tons. To provide this amount of energy, two types of collectors, type A (without obstacle) and type B (with obstacle installation in the air channel) were analyzed by Matlab code. The use of obstacles in the air channel increased the thermal efficiency of the collector from 37 to 55 percent in the single cover type and from 48 to 62 percent in the double cover type. The average of the best tilt angle of the collector installation was recorded at 27.5 degrees in south direction. The required energy supply time (961/1 MJ/1.5 tons) for a solar system with an area of 30 square meters, for A and B type collectors was calculated as 41.25 and 27.69 hours in single cover and, 31.14 and 24.1 hours in two cover, respectively.