Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Computational fluid dynamic analysis of innovative design of solar-

biomass hybrid dryer: An experimental validation
Sonthawi Sonthikun a, b, Phaochinnawat Chairat b, Kitti Fardsin b, Pairoj Kirirat a, b,
Anil Kumar a, b, Perapong Tekasakul a, b, *
a
Energy Technology Research Center (ETRC), Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, 90112 Thailand
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, 90112 Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A solar-biomass hybrid dryer is designed and constructed for natural rubber sheet drying. The dryer
Received 9 August 2015 consists of solar collector cum drying chamber, heat exchanger and biomass furnace. There is indirect
Received in revised form heating of rubber sheet instead of direct exposure to smoke in ribbed smoked rubber drying. An attempt
25 January 2016
has been done to reduce consumption of biomass by introducing solar energy application. Computational
Accepted 27 January 2016
Available online 11 February 2016
fluid dynamics technique is used to simulate the temperature and air flow distributions in an innovative
design of drying chamber. The simulation results for temperature are found very close to experimental
values in terms of statistical parameters. CFD simulation is done for air flow distribution inside solar-
Keywords:
Computational fluid dynamics
biomass hybrid dryer to ensure the utility of air circulating fans. The solar-biomass hybrid dryer is
Natural rubber sheet tested for drying of 100 number of natural rubber sheets. Moisture content of rubber sheet is reduced
Drying chamber from 34.26% to 0.34% (db) in only 48 h, a notable reduction in drying time as well as consumption of
Solar-biomass hybrid dryer biomass. The color and texture of the natural rubber sheet were noticed better than the traditional
Temperature and air flow distribution smoke rubber drying.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Natural rubber sheet is a versatile form of material which is used
in several industries including automotive tires & parts and other
industrial parts. Southeast Asia is a major global exporting source of
rubber sheets. Drying of rubber sheets is necessary to preserve it for
a period of time till industrial process. The ribbed smoked sheet
(RSS) and un-smoked sheet (USS) rubbers are the most common
forms of rubber sheets. The USS are the air dried rubber sheets
which have final moisture content around 3% db before selling to
traders or RSS factories. Higher moisture content may lead to
growth of fungi on rubber sheet surface and it requires the RSS
factories to rewash the sheets before the smoke drying. Lower
moisture content, however, requires extra drying time. On the
other hand RSS have moisture content around 0.3% [1].
The RSS is produced by introducing heat and smoke from fire-
wood burning to the drying chamber. Heat helps drying the rubber
* Corresponding author. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of En-
gineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, 90112 Thailand.
E-mail address: perapong.t@psu.ac.th (P. Tekasakul).
sheets while the smoke coating on rubber sheet surface prevents
growth of fungi that can cause deterioration of the quality. In prac-
tice, RSS drying temperature should not exceed 45
C in the first 12 h
to prevent quality deterioration due to air bubble formation in the
sheets. Temperature should be increased by 5
C for the next 12 h of
the first day and every 5
C for successive days of drying. Flow rate
and temperature of air affect the quality of rubber sheets in the first
6 h after that the influence of relative humidity is more significant
than the airflow rate in the rubber sheet drying [2,3].
Smoke produced from combustion of firewood has a range of
health effects e from eye and respiratory tract irritation to serious
disorders such as breathing problems, bronchitis, increased
severity of asthma, cancer and premature death. This can be
minimized with mix use of other renewable energy sources such as
solar energy. Solar and biomass are key renewable sources of heat
energy which is used for agricultural products drying [4,5]. Proper
utilization of solar and biomass energy sources in drying decreases
drying time and enhances the product quality (color and texture) in
comparison to sole biomass or open sun drying [6,7]. Various types
of solar-biomass hybrid dryers have been designed and developed
for fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products drying [8,9].
There is no significant literature found on rubber sheet drying

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2016.01.095
0960-1481/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
186 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191
inside solar-biomass hybrid dryer. However, long back solar-
assisted smokehouse for the drying of natural rubber was
designed. Drying of 320 kg of rubber sheets took place till final
moisture content of 0.5% (db) was reached in 5 days. The firewood
consumption was considerably reduced as compared with con-
ventional smokehouses [10].
Further, reduction in biomass consumption can be expected by
optimization of design and operating parameters of hybrid dryer.
The main research and development is needed to fabricate efficient
solar energy collection system, better air circulation in drying
chamber and use of appropriate biomass as a supplementary option
whenever required. Dryer design influences the temperature, ve-
locity and air distribution inside the drying chamber. These are
main factors responsible for uniform and efficient drying of rubber
sheets and can be optimized with numerical techniques [11,12].
Appropriate computer simulations have been used for designing
efficient dryers. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a common
tool for predicting the heat distribution and fluid flow pattern [13].
So far, many researchers and scientists have applied CFD in
designing and performance evaluation of drying systems for agri-
cultural produces. It has been proved that CFD is an important
simulation tool for design and development of dryers [14e18].
Some researchers have already employed CFD for studying the
drying characteristics of ribbed smoked rubber sheet (RSS) in a
conventional dryer. CFD simulation has been applied to solve a non-
uniform flow and large temperature variation in a natural rubber
smoking room without air circulation [11,12,19e21].
CFD modeling of single-component and multi-component flow
was used to simulate the temperature, air velocity and relative
humidity at various locations inside rubber-sheet drying chamber.
The simulation modeling for multi-component was more precise
and realistic than the single-component. However, complexity
arises from addition of another component is not necessary in case
of the rubber drying because improvement of accuracy by using 2-
component air model is very small [11,21].
There is no research found on computational fluid dynamic
modeling of hybrid solar-biomass dryer for natural rubber sheet
drying. In the present study, a single-component model is used to
simulate temperature and air flow pattern inside solar-biomass
drying chamber in load condition. A hundred natural rubber
sheets are loaded for drying inside hybrid dryer. Simulation and
experimental results are compared and analyzed. Moisture removal
rate is also studied for entire period of drying.
2. Experimental setup and instrumentation
The solar-biomass hybrid dryer was designed and constructed at
Saikao Cooperative (Latitude: N 7
100 32.17300 and Longitude: E
100
360 51.53800 ), located in the Muang district, Songkhla province,
Thailand (Fig. 1). The designed dryer consists of biomass burning
furnace coupled with heat exchanger and transparent roof to
receive solar radiation for direct heating of air and rubber sheets
inside the drying chamber. The solar energy was used for direct
heating of inside air and rubber sheets during day time while
biomass was burnt to maintain the temperature inside drying
chamber during off shine hours. Heat exchanger employs for indi-
rect heating of drying air instead of direct feeding of hot smoke in
the drying chamber like in conventional rubber drying. Geometric
parameters, the material property of the prototype solar-biomass
hybrid dryer and rubber properties are given in Table 1.
The biomass was burnt in a cylindrical furnace of 200-L capacity.
This furnace is connected to the heat exchanger (hot tubes) where
hot smoke flows inside the horizontal heat exchanging tubes and
exhaust through a chimney. There are two holes at the bottom of
the front wall to introduce the fresh ambient air. Fresh air was
heated when it came in contact with outer surface of heat
exchanger tubes. Hot air was utilized for evaporating the moisture
from the rubber sheets placed inside the drying chamber. The hu-
mid air was continuously removed from drying chamber by a
ventilator through perforated tubes on the upper part of the side
walls. Two fans were also mounted on each side wall for better hot
air circulation and uniformity of temperature inside drying cham-
ber. This helps in the enhancement of heat and mass transfer under
forced convection mode. The front door was designed for loading
and unloading of rubber sheet carts. This whole process involves
indirect heating from biomass burning and direct solar heating to
remove moisture from the rubber sheets.
Temperatures at 15 different positions in 3 vertical planes were
measured by type-K thermocouples as shown in Fig. 2. Solar
insolation was measured by a pyranometer (Kipp & Zonen, CMP11).
The data were recorded continuously using a data logger (Wisco,
DL2200). Six rubber sheet samples as indicated in Fig. 3 were
weighed after every three hours by weighing balance (SHIMADZU,
ELB 3000) to determine the moisture contents.
3. Simulation approach
3.1. Governing equations
CFD is used for temperature and air flow distribution investi-
gation inside the drying chamber. Heat and mass transfer in the
drying chamber are accomplished by solving the 3-dimensional
governing equations (mass, momentum and energy equations)
along with initial and boundary conditions under transient and
turbulent flow assumptions. The flow is incompressible. The gov-
erning partial differential equations are express below [11,12,21]:
Continuity equation
vr
þ V$ðruÞ ¼ 0 (1)
vt
Momentum equation
vðruÞ
  
þ V$ðruuÞ ¼ VP þ V$ teff þ rgb T 0  T (2)
vt
Energy equation
0 1
vðrEÞ X

@
þ V$ðuðrE þ PÞÞ ¼ V$ leff VT  Hj Jj þ teff $u A (3)
vt j
where u is the mean velocity component vector (m/s), E is the
specific energy of fluid (J/kg), leff is the effective thermal conduc-
tivity (W/m.K), Hj is the enthalpy of species j (J/kg), Jj is the diffusion
flux of species j (kg/m2 s), t is time (s), r is the density (kg/m3), P is
the pressure (N/m2), g is the gravitational acceleration vector (m/
s2), b is the thermal expansion coefficient, T 0 is the system sur-
rounding temperature in the work (reference temperature, K), T is
the mean temperature and teff is the effective stress tensor as Eq.
(4).
h
i 2
teff ¼ meff Vu þ VuT  V$uI (4)
3
where meff is the effective viscosity (kg/m.s), uT is the transposed
mean velocity (m/s), and I is the unit tensor.
The air flow in the rubber sheet drying chamber is turbulent
(Re ¼ 5008.6). Therefore, it is necessary to employ an appropriate
turbulent model to describe unknowns in all equations, i.e. turbu-
lent mass fluxes, Reynolds stresses and turbulent heat fluxes. The
standard k  ε model was proven to be an accurate model for the
 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191 187

Fig. 1. Solar-biomass hybrid dryer for rubber sheet drying.

Table 1
Details of components, materials, sizes and material properties of the drying chamber.

Component Material Size Material property

Thermal conductivity (W/m.K) Density (kg/m3) Specific heat (J/kg.K)

Furnace door Iron diameter 0.56 m 80.2 7870 447

thickness 5 mm
East wall Brick & Cement 3 m  0.1 m  2.7 m 1.0/0.72 2645/1860 960/780
West wall 3 m  0.1 m  3.2 m
North wall 4 m  0.1 m  2.9 m
South wall 4 m  0.1 m  2.9 m
Door of the smoking room Iron 1  1.2 m 80.2 7870 447
thickness 3 mm
Rubber entry door Iron 1.8  2.2 m 80.2 7870 447
thickness 3 mm
Translucent roof Polyester resin 3.2  4 m 0.35 1600 1000
thickness 3 mm
Exhaust fan cover Iron 0.62  0.52 m 80.2 7870 447
thickness 3 mm
Floor Concrete 34m 1.4 2300 880
thickness 0.1 m
Drying sample Natural rubber sheet 0.45 m  1.2 m  0.03 m 0.14 930 1880

simulation of rubber sheet smoking chamber [11,12,21]. The

equations for the kinetic energy of turbulence (k) and its dissipation
rate (ε) are given as the additional parameters.

3.2. Simulation model

Fig. 4 demonstrates the 3-D solar-biomass hybrid dryer simu-

Fig. 2. Positions of temperature measurement in drying chamber.
lation model. The dimensions were identical to the actual solar-
biomass hybrid dryer described in Sec. 2. For simulation, 100 rub-
ber sheets (0.45 m  1.2 m  0.03 m) were used. The drying period
was 2 days under clear sky conditions. This model used air-only or
single component model with assumptions of incompressible and
unsteady-state flow [11].
Grid verification was conducted by testing 3 levels of grid
density; low (824,876 elements), medium (2,373,618 elements) and
high (9,380,768). The meshing method was set to automatic
because of the complexity in the drying chamber and the restricted
resources. The high-grid density scheme requires computational
resource beyond availability in the laboratory used in the present
study (Intel core-i5, 3.3 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Hard disk) and the
calculation was not successful. The low-density grid configuration
has the maximum grid aspect ratio of 81 which is higher than the
188 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191

Fig. 3. Positions of rubber sheet samples used to determine moisture content.

Fig. 4. 3-D model of rubber sheet drying chamber.

medium setting (72). The higher maximum aspect ratio yields
greater erroneous results. Then the medium setting was selected
for simulation in the present study. The medium setting was found
to obtain satisfactory results under the unsteady-state model. The
temperature was recorded at 15 different positions inside drying
chamber (Fig. 2) for validation of CFD model by ANSYS-FLUENT
commercial software version 14. The k  ε turbulent model was
used with the standard equation and constant parameters
(Cm ¼ 0.09, C1ε ¼ 1.44, C2ε ¼ 1.92, sk ¼ 1.0, sε ¼ 1.3). The standard
wall function was used to compute in this simulation in the
restricted resource.
3.3. Initial and boundary conditions
The initial temperatures of chamber walls, surfaces of tubes and
furnace, roof, inside air, and rubber sheets were assumed at 30
C.
Boundary conditions including inlet air velocity and temperature,
wall and roof heat flux, heat exchanger (hot tube) and furnace
temperature, and outlet pressure are given in Table 2. The inlet air
velocity was calculated from the flow rate of the ventilating fan
while the inlet air temperature was assumed to be constant at
30
C, which was a typical average ambient temperature in the area
of experimentations. The wall heat flux was an average value ob-
tained from a calculation using flow over flat-plate assumption. The
roof heat flux was the heat per unit area transmitted through the
roof. The solar radiation pattern shown in Fig. 5 was used along
with roof properties. The hourly average values of solar radiation
were used in the calculation. The hot tube and the furnace tem-
peratures were calculated from heat flux obtained from the amount
of biomass supply to the furnace in a period of burning as shown in
Fig. 6 using CFD. The roof heat flux from solar radiation, and the
heat exchanger tube and furnace surface temperature were used as
the boundary conditions in the user defined function (UDF) of the
program. The outlet pressure was observed 0 Pa at gauge pressure.
Air properties were assumed to be constant; thermal

Table 2
Boundary conditions used in the simulation.

Parameter Value

Inlet air velocity (m/s) 0.21

Inlet air temperature (
C) 30
Wall heat flux (W/m2) 15
Roof heat flux (W/m2) UDF
Hot-tube temperature (
C) via heat flux as UDF
Furnace temperature (
C) via heat flux as UDF
Outlet pressure (Pa) 0
Fan outlet pressure (Pa) 6.6
Fig. 5. Hourly average solar radiation used in the simulation.
 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191
Fig. 6. Furnace and heat exchanger tube temperature used in simulation.
Fig. 7. Solar radiation during rubber sheet drying.
conductivity of 0.0242 W/(m K), the specific heat of 1.006 kJ/(kg K)
and density of 1.225 (kg/m3). The accuracy of type-K thermocouples
was calibrated with a thermometer within ±0.5
C. The temperature
of the furnace wall was obtained from simulation using a
0.2 m  0.3 m  0.2 m heat source. The heat source generated
approximately 27,017.20 W/m2 heat equivalent to the amount of
biomass use in the entire drying period (58.55 kg for 2 days). The
heat supply was calculated from the summary of heat that was
needed to evaporate the water from rubber, the heat loss from the
wall and the solar energy which was obtained from the roof. Prop-
erties of the rubber sheets, details of materials, sizes and dimensions
of components used in the simulation are given in Table 1.
Fig. 8. Biomass used during rubber sheet drying.
189
Fig. 9. Temperature inside solar-biomass hybrid dryer during rubber sheet drying.
4. Result and discussion
4.1. Experimental validation of drying chamber temperature
Natural rubber sheet drying experiment inside the solar-
biomass hybrid dryer was started on July 3, 2014, at 08:00 h and
ended on July 5, 2014, at 08:00 h. The total drying time was 48 h.
The experiment was carried out with 100 rubber sheets for vali-
dation of simulation results. The energy combination was solar-
biomass-solar-biomass for the whole drying period. The direct so-
lar energy was used in the day time while biomass energy was
employed for heating the air inside the dryer during off-sunshine
hours. The drying chamber temperature was maintained at 45
C
during first 12 h of drying. An increment of 5
C was applied at
every 12 h.
The solar radiation pattern during the experiment is shown in
Fig. 7. Total solar energy received in two days was 316.05 MJ while
total solar energy assumed in the simulation is 301.93 MJ. The
difference is because it was input in a step manner as shown in
Fig. 5 for convenience in the simulation. The source of biomass can
be a residue of the wooden furniture industry and fresh rubber tree
branches. Here, fresh rubber-wood biomass was used for combus-
tion in the furnace. 25 and 32 kg of wood were burnt in the first and
the second night, respectively, as indicated in Fig. 8. The actual total
consumption of biomass was 57 kg, almost identical to the value
calculated for the simulation in Sec. 3.3 (58.55 kg).
The temperature profiles inside drying chamber at three planes;
top (T), middle (M) and bottom (B) are shown in Fig. 9. There is no
significant difference in average temperature at all three planes
because of proper mixing of air by wall mounted fans. This justifies
Fig. 10. Simulation and experimental result of air temperature inside solar e biomass
hybrid dryer during rubber sheet drying.
190 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191

Table 3
Statistically validation of simulation results.

Experimentation duration Coefficient of determination (R2) Root mean square of percent deviation (er)

1st Day 0.995 2.30

1st Night 0.988 5.09
2nd Day 0.995 3.24
2nd Night 0.997 2.90

moisture content of rubber sheets. The drying chamber tempera-

Fig. 11. Path lines of airflow inside drying chamber with circulating fans.
the installation of the fans. The average drying chamber tempera-
ture on the first day is recorded as 34
C whereas 47
C on the
second day. Temperature on the first day was lower due to cloudy
weather condition after 12:00 h as well as the effect of higher
ture at night time was maintained by heat from biomass burning.
The sudden increase in chamber temperature at 21:00 h in the
experiment was a result of the uncontrollable heat from biomass
burning, and similar phenomenon took place in the second night.
The average drying chamber temperature on the first night was
recorded as 45
C whereas 55
C in the second night. These are
favorable temperature range for retaining the quality of rubber
sheets. The temperature of the chamber on the second day was
higher due to the clear sky condition, the storage of heat in the wall,
and the less moisture content of the rubber sheets.
The temperature at each plane is very close to average drying
chamber temperature. Hence, average drying chamber tempera-
ture is considered for comparison with the simulation values.
Experimental and simulation results are plotted against clock time
as shown in Fig. 10. The temperature profile of simulation results is
almost similar to experimental temperature profile. However,
simulation results slightly over-estimate the temperature during
the whole experiment. This is due to the assumption of CFD
simulation modeling that neglects the presence of moisture
transport. The coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean
square of percent error (er) are used for validation of simulation
results against experimental observations and given in Table 3. The
R2 and er are vary from 0.98 to 0.99 and 2.3% to 5.9%, respectively,
which show the good strength of the linear association and close-
ness of the simulation results with the experimental data. Hence,
CFD model for solar-biomass hybrid rubber sheet drying system
presented in the present study is in good agreement with the
experimental results.
4.2. Simulation of air flow distribution inside solar-biomass hybrid
dryer

The air flow path lines inside the solar-biomass hybrid dryer are
predicted by CFD simulation modeling under unsteady state flow
condition for with and without air mixing fans and is shown in
Figs. 11 and 12, respectively. Two identical fans are installed on the
side walls for circulating hot air to maintain the uniformity in
temperature inside the drying chamber. This arrangement helps in
steady heat transfer in drying of rubber sheets at different levels
and positions in the drying chamber. The path lines of air flow with
circulation are much longer and continuous as compared to the
non-circulating natural flow. And the air flow is also distributed
more uniformly in the drying chamber. This can easily be visualized
in Figs. 11 and 12. The pathlines in the chamber for the non-
circulating case are not thorough and leave the chamber rapidly
as shown in Fig. 12. The average velocity of air without and with the
circulating fans recorded at 15 positions shown in Fig. 2 are 0.34 m/
s and 0.63 m/s, respectively. The higher velocity of air is the cause of
turbulence that enhances drying rate.

4.3. Moisture content of rubber sheet samples

The main objective of the present study is to reduce the mois-

ture content of raw rubber sheets to 2e3% by smallholders before
Fig. 12. Path lines of airflow inside drying chamber without circulating fans. selling to rubber sheet smoking industries/traders. The dry-basis
 S. Sonthikun et al. / Renewable Energy 92 (2016) 185e191
Fig. 13. Moisture content of rubber sheets sample during drying.
moisture contents as a function of time are shown in Fig. 13. It is
observed that the moisture removal remains uniform from all
samples during the experiment. The desirable moisture content of
3% db was reached at 36th hr from the average initial moisture
content (34.26% db). The rubber sheets were continuously dried to
reach the moisture content of 0.34% db at 48th hr, significantly
below the expected value. However, previously developed solar
dryers for rubber drying were able to reduce moisture content to
0.5e2.0% in 7e10 days because the flow was natural [10,22,23]. This
ensures that the dried rubber sheets are of good quality and the
drying chamber design is appropriate for 100 number of rubber
sheets drying.
5. Conclusions
A CFD simulation modeling and experimental research of the
temperature distribution & air flow phenomenon inside solar-
biomass hybrid dryer was performed. CFD simulation was investi-
gated with FLUENT ANSYS software. Experimentally, the tempera-
ture distribution inside solar dryer was recorded at three planes
which are very close to average drying chamber temperature. From
the values of coefficient of determination (0.96e0.99) and root
mean square of percent error (2.27e5.68%), it is inferred that the
predicted values are in harmony with the observed values in
complete drying period. CFD simulation model developed in this
work is validated with the experimental observations. The present
model will be beneficial to design solar-biomass hybrid dryer for a
given quantity of rubber sheet. The moisture content of rubber
sheet is reduced from 34.26% (db) to 3% (db) in 36 hr and became
stagnant at 0.34% (db) after 48 hr. This is a remarkable reduction in
time as well as in biomass consumption with respect to traditional
approach and also an improvement in the quality of the rubber
sheet. The design of solar-biomass hybrid dryer is an economical
alternative and can be recommended to smallholders.
191
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Higher Education Research
Promotion and National Research University Project of Thailand,
Office of the Higher Education Commission (Grant No.
SCI540524B). Authors are highly grateful to them for their support.
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Conference (TSAE2014); Pranakorn Sri Ayutthaya, Thailand; April 2-4, 2014.