Increasing Efficiency of Grain Drying With the Use of Electroactivated Air and Heater Control

Abstract

This chapter describes how drying is the most power-consuming process of post-harvest processing. Methods are viewed of how to heighten productivity of grain-drying equipment and to decrease energy consumption of the process. Using electrically activated air as a drying agent provides greater efficiency in the process of drying grain with active ventilation. Saturation of the air with ions in this case is conducted cyclically. This allows the use of reactions of the biological object called “caryopsis” to cause external impacts to the material increasing the efficiency of drying. The parameters of the drying agent are changed by controlling the electric heater. The dependency of the rate and energy consumption of drying on the drying agent allows control of the process. The chapter presents experimental obtained dependencies, which allow for the design of algorithms to control the aforementioned type.