CFD Analysis of Greenhouse Solar Dryer with Different Roof Shapes

The seasonal agricultural products could be dried when surplus quantity is produced and it can be consumed when not cultivated. Drying of food materials consumes a much time and energy. Green house dryer is the cheapest drying methods since it consumes naturally available solar energy. The use of green house dryer keeps the food safe from dirt, dust and even from adverse weather conditions instead of keeping the food material in open sun light. The computational fluid dynamics is most powerful tool required to optimize the design and analysis is carried out with different roof structure greenhouse solar dryer like hemispherical, trapezium and triangle. The dryer analysis was carried out with free and forced convection for Triangle, hemispherical and trapezoidal and also analyzed the performance with no load condition. Temperature profiles under various ambient conditions were analyzed to find the most efficient dryer. The result concludes that trapezoidal roof shape greenhouse dryer has maximum temperature than other shapes of greenhouse solar dryer.