1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,Cross River University of Technology, Calabar-Nigeria
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike-Nigeria
3Department of Mechanical Engineering, Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, Benue-Nigeria
The business of using solar energy in crops drying has been in existence from the primitive man. This plays a significant role economically to famers and governments the world over. As important as this is, there has always been a quest to improve the method with increasing population and the need for more food production and better methods of storage. The dryer concentrates the available solar energy on the crops to be dried and by this reduces the length of time of drying, increasing the shelve life of the dried product and its quality. This work specifically focused on the design and construction of a mixed mode solar dryer from locally sourced materials for drying okra. The highest ambient air temperature recorded was 33°C corresponding to the highest solar insolation of 450 W/m2 at 14:00 hrs. In all, the overall dryer efficiency was about 65.5%.
Solar energy, shelve life, mixed mode, dryer efficiency
