EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF A MATHEMATICAL-MODEL FOR THE BATCH DRYING OR CORN GRAINS

Yellow dented corn samples were dryed in the laboratory with heated air in a batch fluidized bed dryer at three different operation conditions. The evolution of the temperature and moisture content were predicted with both, a model proposed in the literature that neglects the position dependence of the diffusion coefficient and a modified version of it that takes into account the above mentioned functionality. Both models were solved by means of collocation in finite elements. The consideration of the diffusivity as a position function leads to better agreement with the experimental results.