The hybrid solar air heater is used to preserve agricultural products, save power consumption and reducing environmental destruction. A new type of V-trough solar collector has been designed and tested. An attempt has been made in this work to design, development of V trough solar air heater for drying applications, which consist of absorber plate, insulation materials, glass covers , Phase change materials (PCM), V trough reflectors with thermal energy storage and a drying chamber. The hybrid solar air heater is 1 m long, 0.27m wide and 0.025 m thick, and incorporates absorber and thermal energy storage unit. By free convection, air flows in a pipe for 3m length pipe in 3 passes in a PCM stored absorber between two glazings which is inclined at 120 degree angle position into drying chamber. The experiments are conducted for drying half kilo capsicum and the results show that considerable improvement in moisture removal. It is concluded that the design is compact, sufficiently simple and gives a high thermal performance. The fabricated system is tested at outdoor condition on sunny days in Kengeri, Mysuru Road, Bengaluru (Latitude :12.96° North,Longitude:77.63° East). It is found from the experimental results, the thermal efficiency of the solar air heater is varies from 12% to 65% in a day.
Phase Change Material (PCM), V-Trough Solar Collector, Solar Air Heaters, Absorber plate, Free Convection