Experimental Studies and Mathematical Modeling of Drying Wheat in Fluidized Bed Dryer

Objective: This paper presents a comparative study on the mathematical modeling of the drying characteristics of wheat grains and to estimate the suitable mathematical model of the drying behavior of the wheat at different operating parameters. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The drying experiments were performed in cylindrical fluidized bed dryer. Drying experiments were carried out with different operating parameters such as inlet air temperature (55, 60 and 65°C), air velocity (2.2, 2.4 and 2.6 m/sec) and initial moisture content of wheat (27.5, 30 and 32.5%) of total solid weight. Findings: The result of moisture content observed for various drying air temperature, velocity, and initial moisture content converted to the moisture ratio countenance with drying time at a corresponding time during their drying process. Thirteen mathematical models are compared based on their correlation coefficients, ischolar_mainmean square error, mean bias error and reduced -square to estimate the drying curves with the help of the experimental data. Among different model considered, the logarithmic model presented a better agreement with the data attained from the experiments. Application/ Improvements: It is used for agricultural and pharmaceutical drying process.