Estimating paddy drying costs
1988
Tia, W. | Soponronnarit, S. (King Mongkut's Inst. of Technology, Thomburi, Bangkok (Thailand). School of Energy and Materials)
Paddy with an initial moisture content of 20% was dried to a final moisture of 14% in a mechanical bin dryer developed by Soponronnarit (1987). The relative humidities used in this experiment were 69.3 and 78.3% with temperature fixed at 27.6 deg C. Air was heated up by 1.5, 5, 10, and 15 deg C temperature rise and a static pressure of not more than 3000 Pa was maintained. Grain bed thickness before varied for different air flow rate used in the drying experiment. Using low air flow rate (3.3 cu. m/min/cu. m paddy) in drying costs lower than using high air flow rate (33 cu. m/min/cu. m of paddy) regardless of the kind of energy used. Cost is also decreased when the relative humidity of the ambient air is decreased from 78.3 to 69.3% and when air temperature rise is increased from 1.5 to 15 deg C above the ambient air of the experiment. Of the three fuel sources, fuel oil was cheapest but the capital cost of a liquid fuel equipment is greater than the electricity or gas fired equipment. Dry matter loss (DML) of paddy dried using low air flow rate was greater than that dried using high flow rate. DML ranged from 4-18.5% for the former and 0.6-5.0% for the latter of the total cost of drying. The cost of dry matter loss therefore was much smaller than the energy cost particularly when drying at high air flow rate.
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