Prediction of the intermittent drying behavior of soybeans [Glycine max (L.)] using novel multilayered mass transfer simulation with an image analysis

Abstract

This study developed a multilayered moisture conservation model (MCM) to reflect the structural differences of soybean. The blue-channel image derived from image analysis revealed two different structure regimes in the soybeans. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were used to simulate the flow fields of the convective dryer and estimate the mass transfer coefficient from the local air velocity (2.04 m/s). The MCM accurately predicted the moisture changes of soybean during continuous and intermittent drying (RMSE <0.214). During an effective drying time of 600 min, increasing the intermittency from 0 to 0.5 decreased the moisture content from 8.04 to 6.57%.

Keywords:

• Computational fluid dynamics
• image analysis
• intermittent drying
• mass transfer simulation
• Soybean

Additional information

Funding

This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ012544)" Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea. This study has been worked with the support of a research grant of Kangwon National University in 2016.