SCIENTIFIC PAPERS-SERIES A-AGRONOMY, vol.60, pp.486-490, 2017 (ESCI)
Drying of thin layer white mulberry fruits was studied using a solar tunnel dryer under the ecological conditions of Isparta, Turkey. An experimental solar dryer with a flat plate solar collector has been constructed at the Department of Agricultural Machinery and Technologies Engineering at Suleyman Demirel University. In this work, the effects of solar tunnel drying on drying time, drying ratio of white mulberry were investigated. During the drying process, solar irradiation, drying air temperature, relative humidity, and air velocity were measured constantly in different parts of the dryer. The change of white mulberry fruits mass was measured daily. In this study, the fresh white mulberry fruit samples were selected, sorted, washed in water. The drying characteristic curves were evaluated against ten mathematical models and the Midlli-Kucuk was found to be the best descriptive model for solar tunnel drying of thin layer white mulberry fruit samples.