Experimental Investigation and Thermodynamic Modeling of Drying of Green Peas in a Batch Fluidized Bed Dryer

In this paper, air drying of green peas in a batch fluidized bed dryer has been modeled using a thermodynamic approach. Samples were dried in a laboratory scale fluidized bed dryer at three temperatures of 40, 50 and 60°C. The proposed model has been developed based on mass, energy and entropy balance on the air and drying materials. Temperature variations of samples and exhaust air, moisture content of samples and humidity of exhaust air, exergy and entropy generations during dehydration were predicted by the proposed model. The results show that the air velocity doesn’t have a considerable effect the drying rate. The proposed model was validated by the experimental data. The relative errors between predicted values and the experimental data (MRE) were 4.6 and 5.6%, for moisture content of drying samples and output air temperature, respectively.