Design and simulation of an optimum air conditioning system for grain storage and processing.

Abstract

Maize grain storage occupies a vital role in Uganda's economy. Proper monitoring of maize grain storage is essential reduce losses. The. present system involves human effort in most of the activities which reduces work efficiency and increases time consumption. These difficulties can be avoided by this project. In this project, the controlling and monitoring of the maize grain storage area is fully automated. The main objective of the project was to design an optimum air conditioning system for maize grain storage and processing to control and maintain the temperature in storage area at a desirable value which prevents the formation of microorganisms and spoilage of grains. In this project temperature is the main parameter that is essential for proper storage of maize grains and is taken as an input parameter to be controlled automatically using the programmable logical controller and is measured using a temperature sensor The system was modelled using Matlab Simulink tool. box and. accomplished using proteus software far simulation and Embedded C Programming language for coding. The design consists of a microcontroller to receive input signals from the temperature sensor and processes the data acquired and then sends the output signal to the LCD to be displayed on the screen. The simulation results of the designed System indicated that temperature of the maize grain storage room must be kept constant by monitoring and controlling it automatically to prolong the storage period to more than one year and the simulation validated the expected behavior of system hardware if implemented. The system is best suited for commercial maize grain dealers and processors to maintain high quality grains for longer periods.