Performance evaluation of a non-equilibrium model for low temperature grain drying and simulation of seasonal dryer operation

Abstract

Low temperature, fixed bed grain drying was investigated as an alternative to high temperature drying. Drying data was collected in an on-farm bin drying system over three harvest seasons. A one-dimensional transient model of the grain drying process was shown to predict most aspects of the drying process with reasonable accuracy. Preliminary calculations were completed to investigate the potential benefits of a heat pump as the heat source using typical meteorological year data. It was shown that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by as much as 90% at a similar operating cost compared to high temperature fossil fuel-based drying.

Keywords:

• Grain drying
• energy analysis
• low temperature
• model
• corn
• soy
• heat pump drying
• greenhouse gas emissions

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sebastien Williams, Maxwell Fisher, and Joanne Ryks for their assistance and support in completing this research. Additionally, three anonymous reviewers provided important feedback that significantly improved the presentation of this work.