Summary
The objectives of this study are to develop a simple mathematical model which can accurately predict the moisture content of wheat in the thin-layer drying process. Then a thin-layer drying experiment of wheat was carried out.HomePage
The drying operations of wheat in Japan are finished at moisture content of 14 to 15%w.b. generally. The data under 14%w.b. is not important.
To improve prediction accuracy above 14%w.b. by the drying model, thin-layer drying process of wheat which could be divided into three drying periods, was investigated. It was assumed that a drying process of wheat could be composed of the surface drying of wheat and intra-kernel drying, then a two-term exponential model could be fitted to those drying. As a result, it was found that the two-term exponential model could interpret drying characteristics of thin-layer of wheat accurately. The relations between parameters of the two-term exponential model and drying air temperatures and initial moisture contents of wheat were defined. Tempering effect was discussed as an example of application of the two-term exponential model.