Performance of a reverse flat plate absorber cabinet dryer: a new concept

The reverse flat plate absorber is a non-concentrating collector which can collect solar energy at high temperature, unlike conventional non-concentra ting collectors. In this paper, the concept of a reverse flat plate collect or has been used as a heating medium of air for drying agricultural product s in a cabinet dryer. The thermal performance of the new proposed dryer is analyzed by solving the various energy balance equations. For parametric st udies, numerical computations have been performed for a typical day of June for Delhi climatic conditions. The performance of this system is compared with that of a conventional cabinet dryer. It is found that the reverse fla t plate absorber dryer gives the better performance. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.