CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

A simple physical model is presented for mass airflow determination in passive solar dryers. The model simultaneously solves two networks by electrical analogy; a pressure circuit and thermal circuit are used to represent the system design. In this work, the model is applied to the design of solar dryers with two different flow sources operating simultaneously; the chimney effect and the wind turbine. Thus, it is possible to find the maximum mass airflow that a passive dryer can generate according to its geometrical dimensions, pressure drops inside the dryer and meteorological variables. A simulation of two study cases has been carried out; the first, a bibliography example and the second, an experimental validation using a domestic solar dryer.