CHARACTERISTICS STUDY OF A DOUBLE PASS CONVEYOR COOLER OF MOBILE CORN DYER USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

• Main Author: Adi Putra, Iqbal
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/71876
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Mobile Corn Dryer (MCD) is a device that is used to reduce the moisture content of harvested corn. MCD is built in the form of a four-wheeled vehicle so that it can easily reach all corn farming areas. In MCD there is a cooling process to lower the temperature of the corn after going through the drying process through heating. In the version studied, the cooling system is modified from one-pass into a two-pass conveyor configuration so that the cooling duration increases. This research was conducted to determine the effect of the residence time of corn and the thickness of the pile of corn in the cooling unit on the final temperature of the corn. In addition, this study also aims to determine the temperature distribution of corn along the conveyor. The cooling process was simulated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. The residence time of the corn in the cooling unit was varied by varying the value of the mass flow rate of the corn. Then at each mass flow rate of the corn the thickness of the corn pile was also varied. When the residence time is below 100 seconds, 2 cm increase in pile thickness will result in a final temperature increase of 7 – 8°C. However, when the residence time in the range 100 – 200 seconds, the effect of thickness became insignificant to the final temperature of the corn. When the residence time above 200 seconds, the effect of increasing residence time became insignificant to the final temperature of the corn. For the distribution of the temperature gradient of corn to the x-axis position, the gradient value is getting smaller but there is an increasing gradient at six positions that adjacent to the airways.