Thermal Analysis and Validation of a Geodesic Dome Dryer for Capsicum Baccatum
Abstract
Today, Peru is among the first countries with the largest non-conventional agroexports worldwide. One of the most representative products is the Capsicum baccatum, which is mostly exported as frozen, pasta and sauces because the traditional process used for drying is not optimal. Given this, a geodesic dome type dehydrator, that uses solar thermal energy, was developed to contribute to the process of drying a variety of Capsicum baccatum. This research has been developed in the project "Design and development of a portable dehydrator for the transformation and conservation of pickled chili in Mórrope Lambayeque using renewable energies", which has the sponsorship of the National Program of Agricultural Innovation (PNIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture of Peru, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The results using the dome dryer are a temperature of around 43° C has been obtained for a day with global irradiance at midday of 780 W m-2 and an air flow velocity of 1.1 m s-1; in addition, for a load of 50 kg of chili the dome is able to reduce its moisture content from 89.5% to 15% in 20 days.