Control of a solar dryer using a hybrid solar gas

collector.
Ahmed ZOUKIT, Hicham EL FEROUALI, Issam Toufik EL KILALI
SALHI, Said DOUBABI, Naji ABDENOURI*. Ste CADVAL 506 Quartier Industriel
LSET, Applied Physics Department, Cadi Ayyad University 40000 Marrakech, Morocco
Marrakesh, Morocco
n.abdenouri@uca.ac.ma I. INTRODUCTION
Drying offers the possibility of recovery of surplus
Abstract—: Drying is one of the most energy intensive products by their conservation for future consumption.
processes in agro product industry using solar energy appears as In the ancient time, the direct solar drying was practiced
an attractive free and not polluting alternative to be used in drying due to its simplest and free cost; the products were simply
processes. However the daily and seasonal fluctuations in the putted to dry in the sun. The movement of hot air and wind
irradiation level requires using a solar-gas collector an auxiliary
heating system to have a continuous drying process and allows the
remove the product water flowing to surface, this type of
use of the solar dryer in unfavorable weather condition. A control Drying has several drawbacks such as:
system is essential to vary the gas flow in the injector by • The product is exposed to air and also to the dust, the
coordinating the control of a proportional valve, in order to
maintain a suitable temperature in the drying cell. flies and insects, and other pests causing dirt and varied
In this paper, an experimental study of solar dryer has been contaminations.
established under the solar irradiation of 935W/m2 and • Products not completely dried are automatically
1045W/m2. The maximum temperatures reached on the top of the forfeited.
collector and at drying chamber inlet were 81°C and 61°C
respectively. A polynomial approach is used to generate the solar
• The drying time is long and may take several days in
dryer model, afterward; a PI controller has been implemented to favorable weather, so a very poor product quality,
ensure the monitoring of the gas valve for controlling the multiple contaminations, the rehydration at nights and
temperature in dryer cell related to the optimum temperature of cloudy days, etc.
each product. • The method is quite restrictive and requires a lot of
Keywords-component; solar energy; solar-gas collector; work, however, must every time return the product to
hybrid solar dryer;Controll system; PI controller. ensure drying, remove the insects, turning and bringing
the harvesting at night or when it rains.
• Dark color of products that lose much of their nutrients
Nomenclature components, particularly vitamins.
T: Temperature (°C)
I: Incident solar radiation (W/m2) To overcome these problems the product may be placed
U: Voltage command under a transparent cover (glass, plastic film…). The process
is identical to the previous case, but the air and the products
P: Gas power
are warmer due to the greenhouse effect and low air
X: X :Valve displacement
movement in the drying chamber. Moreover the alteration of
E: Error vitamin “A” and “C” with direct exposure to sunlight can’t be
t: Time avoided; also a high temperature inside the dryer causes
Greek Latin products browning. After that, an indirect solar drying were
δ: Thickness (m) practiced where the air is heated by a solar panel separated or
α: Solar absorptivity combined with a drying chamber, the products remain in
ε: Emissivity shadows and are isolated from sunlight. Then it’s not warmed
τ: Time constant by the sun. Drying occurs by exchange of water between
θ: Inclination of the solar air collector(°) product and hot air. This indirect solar drying preserves
nutritional product quality and color. Several studies had been
Subscript
established to enhance the thermal performances of the solar
co: Collector outlet temperature air heaters, the author in [1, 2, 3, 4] established a comparison
dr Drying chamber temperature. of different type of air heaters in term of thermal
C Consign performances. Therefore, at night and cloudy time, the
m: Measured dehydration process slows and can even stop extending the
fin: Fins drying time, even more, multiple rehydration of products
influence negatively their quality. This led to design a new

978-1-5090-4947-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

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 drying method where the hot air is produced regularly and the using gas represents many drawbacks, such as in the level of
drying parameters (temperature, humidity, air flow) are under using a boiler, it needs to build up a local inside the dryer and
control. take a huge place to set up, also a frequent maintenance is
Electric dryers are the best but this energy costs expensive necessary and represent many dangers for handling.
in most developing countries, especially for small rural Whereas, using an exchanger inside the drying chamber, a
entrepreneurs, so we used the wood, diesel, gas and hot water leaking gas can affect negatively the quality of products to be
with quite remarkable success on the quality of products, but dried. So using hybrid solar dryer with a solar-gas collector
the economic cost and environmental consequences remain seems to be more practical and safety, also more flexible to
quit high. However, hybrid solar dryers, operate with solar move on and easy to handle.
energy in addition to another source of energy derived from This type of hybrid solar-gas dryer needs to settle down
conventional sources (electricity, fossil fuels or gas).these a management of energy including a control system of the
dryers employ an auxiliary heating system, enabling them to drying parameters such as airflow, temperature and moisture
operate at night and under unfavorable weather conditions. by a control of the gas flow through the burners by valves.
Many scientists have worked on various kinds of hybrid In our previous work [15,16] we have designed and
solar dryers using hybrid solar-electrical [5, 6, 7, 8, and 9]. simulated a solar-gas collector and in this present paper, the
The author in [5] constructed a hybrid solar dryer consists of work is structured in the following way: A synoptic of the
a solar air heater and an electric heater to provide air at hybrid solar dryer with a solar-gas collector is presented.
constant temperature to the dryer. S. Ould Amrouche and N. Then, an experimental solar dryer is presented. After that a
Benaouda [6] achieved an Experimental study of drying by control system of the solar dryer is established. Finally the
Forced convection of aromatic and medicinal plants in a solar simulation studies of the temperature regulation are provided.
dryer heating partially by solar and an electrical resistance
for providing the auxiliary heating. The authors in [7] I. SYNOPTIC OF THE HYBRID SOLAR DRYER WITH
conceived a prototype of an indirect active hybrid solar– A SOLAR-GAS COLLECTOR.
electrical dryer for agricultural products with an optimization
of electric consumption. Mu Song, Yi Songlin in [8]
constructed a hybrid solar dryer with heat storage system and
an auxiliary electrical heating. A hybrid photovoltaic-thermal
solar dryer was developed by Hamid Mortezapour, Barat
Ghobadian. [9]. In the [10] the authors have conceived a
tunnel dryer using gas as a backup heating system, in which a
heat exchanger is placed in the heating chamber, and it’s
connected to the gas burner to ensure the phenomenon of
heat transfer by conduction between the air and the metal
walls of heat exchanger to achieve a sufficient temperature of
drying air for drying such a product. Others have conceived
solar dryers with thermal energy storage systems. The
thermal energy is stored either as a sensible or latent heat.
The authors in [11] have developed a natural convection
solar dryer with latent heat storage for drying of ginger. A.
Figure1. Hybrid solar dryer synoptic
Reyes, F. Cubillos [12] established a control system in a
hybrid solar dryer using the Phase Change Material (PCM) The drying cell is the seat of the physical operation; it
for storing heat. In [13] the authors conceived a prototype of contains trays that will be filled by the products to be dried
a hybrid solar dryer using water as a heat storage unit. (Fig.1).
Dawoud, B, Amer, E [14] developed a new type of solar
dryer using oil as an inbuilt thermal storage. In these
previous works [11, 12, 13, 14] the operation of dying
remains about 3 to 4 hours at night.
Our hybrid solar dryer is conceived to be used mainly in
the rural areas, so using the gas as a backup heating system
seems to be more suitable alternate due to its availability, low
cost and the ease of handling. However, using gas requires
many cautions. According the applications of gas as an
auxiliary heating system read in the bibliography, two main
ways are found; either they use an external boiler where the Figure 2. Solar-gas collector
hot air is produced and channeled to the drying chamber by
many conduits, or using an exchanger inside the drying cell The solar-gas collector is used to generate regularly the
in order to produce the necessary heat in it. Both two ways of hot air; it’s a collector with a flat plate absorber in which the

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 fins are attached in the underside. The air passes through the Time (min) Tco (°C) Tdr ( °C)
flat-plate collector between the absorber and the exchanger
0 28 25
(metallic sheet). The collector is connected to the drying
chamber and it is inclined by θ =30° relative to the horizontal 10 40 33.5
plan and exposed to the south (Fig.2).
20 54 40
The backup heating system is a set of 9 burners located
30 57 44.5
under the exchanger and monitored by valves.
40 60 48.5
II. EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF THE SOLAR DRYER
50 64 50.5
The experiments were carried out on a solar dryer consisted of
a cubic drying chamber of (1m*1m*1m), fitted with 60 66 52.5
perforated plate trays made of stainless steel, the drying cell is
70 68 54
combined with a solar collector with the following
specifications (Fig.3): 80 71 56.5
• The glass cover’s thickness is δg=3mm 90 72 57
• The absorber’s length is L=2m and its width is 100 73 58
W=0.95m and it is made from aluminum.
• The top side of the absorber is painted with matt black 110 79 58.5
glycerophtalic lacquer that has a solar absorptivity of 120 80 59
αp=0.95 and an emissivity of p=0.8 [14]. 130 81 60.5
• The insulation in the bottom and the edges of the solar
collectors is made from mineral fiber and has a 140 81 60.56
thickness of δb=5cm. 150 81 61
• The number of fins is Nfin=24 and they are made from
aluminum and have a thickness of 1mm.

Figure 4.Drying cell temperature

Figure 3. Experiment Solar dryer

The experiments measurement were carried out on

January 14, 2016, at about 10h15 min to 12h15min, in a clear
sunny day with an ambient temperature of 25°C at the solar
irradiation of 935W/m2 1045W/m2.
TABLE.I shows the result of the experiment
measurements in an interval time of 10min, and it’s observed
that the maximum temperature obtained in the outlet of the
collector and in the drying chamber were 81°C and 61°C Figure 5. Collector outlet temperature
respectively.
TABLE I. solar dryer temperatures measurements

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 Fig.4 and Fig.5 depict the temperature‘s curves of the B. Identification of the system
collector outlet and in the drying chamber, and it’s observed
The solar dryer is assimilated to a first order system with
that the maximum temperatures are attained after 2 hours.
a transfer function:
III. CONTROL SYSTEM OF THE SOLAR DRYER
K
The control system is consisted from a principal F(s) =
proportional valve (0-10V) monitored by a regulator, the
1 + τs
valve displacement leads to vary the gas flow in the injector
which leads also to maintain the temperature inside the Where:
drying chamber a the suitable range as shown in (Fig.6). τ = Time constant
K = Static gain
According to the curve it can be seen that the values of
the static gain and the time constant are:
K = 0.32/°C/W/m2
= 38s
tr = 100 min
Figure 6. The drying cell control system
C. Validation of the model
The model of the system has been created and simulated
in the Simulink platform as shown in (Fig. 9), a step signal of
irradiation is applied to the system and the response recorded
(Fig. 10).

Figure 7. The process chain regulation

Both (valve and gas conduit) are reduced with the drying
chamber to present the main process which has a voltage
signal in the inlet and a temperature in the outlet as shown in
(Fig. 7).

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

Figure 9. The solar dryer model
A. Modelling of the experiment solar dryer
According to the data of the experiment measurements of
60
the drying chamber temperature and by using a polynomial
approach to get the optimized curve as shown in the (Fig. 8), 55
it’s observed that the solar dryer is assimilated to a first order
system. 50
T e m p e ra tu re (°C )

45

40

35

30

25
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Time (min)

Figure 10. The temperature response of the model

Figure 8. The experiment curve of the drying cell temperature

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 65 50

60
45
55
T e m p e ra tu re ( °C )

experimental system

Temperature ( °C )
50 model 40

45

40 35

35
30
30

25 25
0 50 100 150
20 Time ( min )
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Time ( min ) Figure 13. Temperature regulation at 45°C
Figure 11. The validation of the experiment and the model temperature
• Temperature regulation at 50°C
response
According to the result of simulation we observed that the Fig.14 depicts the temperature response of the system to
temperature response of the experiment measurement and the a temperature consign of 50°C, and it’s observed that wished
identified model are nearly the same which means that the consign is well reached by the system.
system is well modeled as shown in (Fig.11).
D. Temperature regulation 55

A PI controller has been synthesized to monitor the 50

proportional valve (0-10V), in order to maintain the
temperature of the drying cell in the suitable range of 45°C,
Temperature ( min )

45
50°C, and 55°C, respectively, this range of temperature is
well appropriate for the agricultural products drying. 40

Fig.12 depicts the chain of regulation of the process. 35

30

25
0 50 100 150
Time ( min )

Figure 14. Temperature regulation at 50°C

• Temperature regulation at 55°C

Fig.15 shows the temperature response to a wished
temperature consign of 55°C. It’s observed that the drying
chamber temperature is well achieved.

60

55

50
Figure 12. Global regulation chain of the process
Tem perature ( °C )

45
• Temperature regulation at 45°C
40
Fig.13 shows the temperature regulation in a fixed
temperature of 45°C. It’s observed that the wished consign of 35

the temperature is well attained in the drying chamber, with a

30
response time of nearly 5min.
25
0 50 100 150
Time ( min )

Figure 15. Temperature regulation at 55°C

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 V. CONCLUSION Control and Intelligent Environmental Monitoring., 740–
We have devoted this paper to present a control system of 742, 2011.
a solar dryer using a solar-gas hybrid collector. Experiment [9] Taylor, P., Mortezapour, H., Ghobadian, B., Minaei, S.,
measurements has been established, an identification of the Khoshtaghaza, M. H., Mortezapour, H., Minaei, S,”
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ACKNOWLEGEMENT
System in a Hybrid Solar Dryer,” In Proc. The fifth
This work was supported by the research institute for International Renewable Energy Congress., 5–9, 2014.
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