Justification of the Method of Drying Walnuts

Abstract

A necessary condition for obtaining a high-quality walnut is its timely drying with bringing it to the standard humidity while maintaining the required quality of the product. Currently, Ukraine does not have a sufficient number of highly efficient lines for the industrial processing of walnuts. The main problem is precisely the lack of high-performance, energy-efficient drying equipment. In practice, dryers of various designs are used for industrial drying of walnuts. The choice of drying equipment depends on a number of factors, such as the volume of products, meteorological conditions during harvesting, availability of energy resources, etc. In most cases, two types of dryers are used for drying walnuts - convective and radiation. Convective dryers have a significant advantage in terms of the possibility of intensifying the drying process. One of the possible ways of intensifying the process is the use of vibration to reduce the aerodynamic resistance of the material layer, which has a positive effect on the energy indicators of the process, and to increase the uniformity of the moisture content of the drying material. The authors proposed a design scheme of a convective-vibration dryer that will organically combine the advantages of the convective drying method with the possibility of intensification of the process through the vibration effect on the material layer. The design of the drying unit allows you to easily control the main mode parameters of its operation: the flow rate and temperature of the drying agent, as well as the parameters of the vibration effect - the frequency and amplitude of the oscillation of the drying container. This is very important for the practical implementation of the nut drying process. After all, the rational selection of these parameters will allow the process of drying walnuts to be implemented with maximum efficiency. The practical implementation of the process of drying walnuts in the shell on this dryer will confirm the innovative approaches included in its design.