DEVELOPMENT of CONTINUOUS GRAIN DRYER

Post harvest processes for rice include drying, storage and processing. Drying has a great effect on the quality of the grain. The existing rice centers are with the ill equipped, especially with drying and storage facilities. The rice harvesting has bully mechanized, a large volume of rice with high moisture content are taken to the rice processing complex(RPC). Three, the need for drying and storage facilities becomes more urgent. At present the daily drying capacity of RPC can't exceed over 40~50 M/T. Therefore new technology and facilities for a high quality and main efficient drying should be introduced one such technology is the continuous flow drying system. This research, aims to test performance efficiency the mixed continuous flow grain dryer was whose daily drying capacity is 100 M/T. The results of the performance tests of the dryer are shown as follows; (1) The temperature distribution of the drying modules were measured by a temperature recorder. The fifth module showed the highest value, followed by the seventh and the third. (2) When the intake air temperature was $55^{circ}C$, the drying rates were 1.7 and 2.6%, wb/pass in the exhaust temperatures of 20 and $22^{circ}C$. And when the intake air temperature was $60^{circ}C$, the drying rates were 1.7 and 2.3%, wb/pass in the exhaust temperatures of 22 and $25^{circ}C$. (3) The average increased rate of cracked grains after the drying process was 0.7% which is below the tolerance limit (2.0%) of the continuous grain dryer.