DESIGN OF SMALL SCALE INFRARED DRYER

Abstract

The Drying of agricultural products is vital for sustainable agricultural production systems. In addition to this, it is also crucial to food safety and human health. Drying is the oldest method to preserve food. Moreover today we need to increase the producer's wage by improving the food quality, safety and to effect improvements on new trends foods.

For these reasons, we need to design and manufacture the dryer, which could be bought and maintained by small scale producers. Manufacturing of the new type of dryer is vital for improving the larger amount of farmers and producers. Therefore in this study, the idea of small scale dryer design was studied.

In the world, lots of dryers are manufactured for the demands of industry and farmers. But for small scale production, the choices are limited. The infrared heating is easily adjustable for small scale applications. In this study, the infrared heat was adjusted to the batch dryer, which has a conveying heater. Within the conveying heat from one side to the other side intermittent drying is almost done, and it improves the food quality. In this study 500 kg capacity of Infrared dryer was designed and manufactured.