Design and Development of an Industrial Fruit and Vegetable Dryer

J.C. Ehiem ； S.V. Irtwange ； S.E. Obetta

《Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology》 1卷2期 (2009/08) Pp. 44-53

並列摘要

An industrial fruit and vegetable dryer was designed and developed to reduce vegetable wastage and improve their storage conditions. It consists of three units: drying chamber, blower and heat exchanger. The performance test and evaluation was conducted using split plot in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with a total number of 756 observations (3 sizes x 3 air flow rates x 14 hours drying time x 6 replications) using tomato as the test material at an average drying chamber temperature of 50℃ for safe drying of tomatoes. The size (small, medium and large), air flow rate (18.3m/s, 18.8m/s and 19.5m/s) and drying time (0-14 hours) has highly significant (P≤0.01) effect on gram weight of the tomato slices being dried. For all the tomato sizes and at all air flow rate levels, gram weight of the tomato decreased with increase in drying time. Also for all the sizes at all drying time levels, gram weight decreased with increase in air flow rate. The dryer which has a mean drying capacity of 258.64kg of tomatoes per batch with a thermal efficiency of 84% and drying rate of 40g/hr, at relative humidity of 35% improved the drying time of vegetables and is recommended to industrial users.

並列關鍵字

Design ； development ； dryer ； fruit ； industrial ； vegetable