Determination of Optimum Performance Characteristics of Combined Infrared- Convectional Dryer in Drying of Banana Slices

 Iran is one of the main producers of fruits in the world. Grading, sizing and sorting of fruit is an important factor in the Iranian marketing and exportation. In this research, the performance of a mechanical sorter machine of semi spherical fruit and fruit damage during process were evaluated. This machine was operates based on the belt-roller mechanism. The effect of some operational characteristics of the machine such as feeding conveyor speed, transportation conveyor speed and fruit kind (two varieties of apple; Red and Golden delicious; and orange) was evaluated on the machine performance factors such as purity index, efficiency of process and fruit damage. The results showed that the purity index was 95.80% and 95.83% for apple and orange sorting, respectively and the optimum capacity of machine was 1 ton per hour at this condition. The fruit damage was negligible at the optimum operational condition such as feeding and transportation conveyor speed and feeding rate. It indicates that the designing and operational characteristics of machine were optimum and the sorting machine was very suitable to sort semi spherical products usable in gardens or cold storages.