Air Circulation Types on Albizia Chinensis Refrigerated Drying
Petrus Kanisius Purwadi, A Prasetyadi

Mechanical Engineering Department,
University of Sanata Dharma

Abstract

Air circulation is important for drying especially in furniture industry. Choice of air circulation type can affect speed of drying, production time, and logistic process. Understanding the effect of air circulation types in refrigerated drying for wooden boards was the aim of this experimental research. Seventy Albizia Chinensis boards of 2 x 0.2 x 0.02 m3 were tested under closed air circulation and opened air circulation. The closed air circulation recorded 34 hours with 30.4% air humidity and [\50^{o}\]C of the inlet air. The RH outlet air was 65%, and its temperature was [\40^{o}\]C. The opened air circulation had inlet air temperature of [\40^{o}\] with 32% RH. The outlet air of the opened air circulation was [\29^{o}\]C and 75% in temperature and RH, respectively. It also needed 39.5 hours for the opened air circulation to provide expected boards dryness. It can be concluded that close air circulation is more suitable for drying the boards with COP of 17 in comparison to open air circulation with COP of 10.7.

Keywords: Performance- Refrigerated drying- Wooden boards

Topic: Mechanical Engineering