Air Flow Pattern Simulation of Low Temperature Drying Cabinet

Abstract

In this work, drying cabinet is designed for drying load of 2 kg onion. Drying cabinet, with air inlet and outlet, is designed with five perforated trays which are mounted one above the other. Each perforated tray has square perforation of size 15 mm each. Keeping the design dimensions of drying cabinet same just by changing locations of inlet and outlet with and without introduction of deflector six cases of drying cabinets were defined as DC1, DC2, DC3, DC4, DC5 and DC6. Air flow simulation is performed inside the drying cabinet without drying load on perforated trays with inlet volumetric flow rate of 0.15 m3/s and inlet air velocity of 6.67 m/s using CFD tool available in SolidWorks. Air flow simulation patterns are studied, analysed and total percentage of weak zone is determined from simulation results. In this analysis drying cabinet DC5 has least value of total percentage of weak zone i.e. 13.22% among the six drying cabinets.