Diseño y construcción de un sistema para deshidratar alfalfa para la Corporación Ecuatoriana para el desarrollo integral productivo Cedinp S.C.C.

Abstract

The economic situation of the agricultural sector at the national level has always been a serious problem, due to the short useful life and seasonality of many products, for which the producers are forced to sell their products at the market price for fear of deteriorate; products such as legumes, vegetables and fruits have a shelf life of a few days so they should be consumed as soon as possible, it is for this reason that the design of an alfalfa dehydrator is proposed in this technical project, for which in In the first place, the parameters that influence the design have been determined, such as the amount of alfalfa to be dehydrated, its relative humidity at the beginning and end of the process, ambient temperature, through a bibliographic study, it was possible to determine the average drying temperature, speed of circulation of hot air, using physical and thermal parameters of the product such as density and specific heat; In the same way, through a thermodynamic study and heat transfer criteria, it was determined, drying time, power and energy necessary for the process, with the aforementioned parameters, of design and built a system to dehydrate alfalfa to which to guarantee an adequate process, a control system was installed for both temperature and air flow, a system that allows dehydration of 15 kg of alfalfa at 40 degrees Celsius and in a time of 8 hours.