Design, construction and testing of a novel round-the clock solar-crop dryer with water recovery :

Abstract

Final year project is a prerequisite for the award of a Bachelor’s degree at Busitema University. The study about design, construction and testing of a round the clock solar crop dryer and water recovery was conducted by a group of five APE students under close supervision of Prof Kant Kanyarusoke. The study herein focuses on the industrial design of the system. Industrial design is a creative activity that uses results of recent research to complete the design of the shape, function and structure of industrial products. For solar crop dryers unfortunately, their industrial design has been neglected resulting into poor aesthetics and poor ergonomics. Previous designers have only concentrated on functionality other than appearance and interaction with the operators. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with a sensory perception of how products appear before others. It’s the philosophy behind a pleasing outlook. Ergonomics on the other hand is a scientific discipline that is concerned with understanding the interaction between human and other elements of the whole system. This study therefore, seeks to ease interaction of the system with operators by addressing challenges of poor aesthetics and poor ergonomics. Studies were made on movability and cornering, right materials were selected for the construction of the dryer and for construction of the support frame. Right dimensions of materials were arrived at by performing simulation analyses using Solidworks 2020. A steering mechanism, cages to protect the intellectual property in the system and a door were designed, and the whole system was manufactured. Finishing operations such as grinding, covering current carrying cables using conduits and painting were employed in this study for ergonomics and aesthetics respectively. Finally the system was installed at the selected site. The designed dryer is easy to move from one place to another and needs an initial force of 150 N to set it into motion and a sustained force of 100N to sustain it in motion. Its dead weight is 250kg and it carries a maximum load of 150kg. It has a pleasing appearance. However, the whole system has no controls and its recommended that the system be automated to regulate temperatures, speeds of the fans and the water collection point should be made funnel-like so that water has no possibility of flowing into the fans. It should be made using a transparent material to monitor the level of water. Also, security personnel should be deployed to keep guard of the site especially during night hours and during holidays when students are off-campus because the selected site is near a road which is used by both students and residents of the surrounding villages and is on the out-skirts of the compound. Key words: industrial design, aesthetics, ergonomics.