Numerical simulation and experimental investigations of the 3D simultaneous heat and mass transfer in a drying system operating under forced convection mode

Drying agricultural products and other porous media is typically done in the open sun, which is unhygienic, labour intensive, and dependent on varying weather conditions. Designing an efficient drying system requires a comprehensive computational analysis of relevant drying phenomena. In this study, numerical simulations and experimental investigations of three-dimensional simultaneous heat and mass transfer in a photovoltaic (PV) - powered drying system operating under forced convection were conducted under no load conditions. The equations governing continuity, momentum, energy, and species were solved using ANSYS Fluent’s Finite Volume Method (FVM), a computational fluid dynamics tool. The highest simulated temperature and velocity in the drying chamber, 393 K and 1.55 m/s, respectively, closely matched the experimental values of 386 K and 1.40 m/s. It is recommended that the developed drying system serve as a practical alternative to traditional open sun drying, as the numerical results were within an acceptable range.