Design and Feasibility Study for Solar Clothes Dryer Installation

Allanegui Garnelo, Javier

Abstract: Present study was carried out in order to
evaluate the feasibility of the substitution of the
drying clothes machines by solar dryer in the
modest Wachira Baramee Hospital in Phitsanulok,
Thailand, because the large savings it can make from
the economic, energetic and ecological point of
view. Project pretends create a precedent for the
future development of this kind of dryers.
For the evaluation, it received support from highly
experimented people allowing us to obtain clear and
valid conclusions. After hospital visit in order to
compile necessary data for our study, energetic
simulations were calculated with Design Builder
software which provided us really useful data.
With results in hand, we could understand how hard
it can be to design a solar system for clothes drying
within time constraints, because of unpredictable
dryer performance under the changing weather
conditions.
Anyways, final conclusion is clear; therefore
installation of these systems in order to substitute
drying machines is perfectly feasible for this specific
location or similar ones, from every previously
mentioned point of view. Finally it must be said that
for ensuring the correct performance all year long an
extra energy source must be installed to help in
drying when weather conditions are not good
enough.
Key words: Drying, Solar, Energy, Simulation,
Feasibility. Radiation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Investigation and development work in drying by
solar energy in Thailand along past 15 years have
been grown fast. Technical and economic results
indicate that solar drying for several crops such as
paddy or fruits are feasible. However, farmers who
accept solar drying and places where it is accepted
are still very few, maybe due to the lack of
information, long payback period and high initial
investment cost.
Research and development work on solar air heaters
have also been expanded constantly. Most of the
solar air heaters developed in the country are used
on the roofs of buildings for several task. Both bare
and glass-covered solar air heaters have been found
technically and economically feasible in comparison
to electricity but have not been able to compete with
the efficiency of fuel oil. Further research and
development work ought to be continued in order to
reduce costs.
The main advantages of every solar drying system
are low operation costs, CO2 emissions reduction
and independence from the energy market price
trend.
In order to improve traditional drying, solar dryers
which have the potential of substantially reducing
disadvantages of open air drying have received
considerable attention over the past 25 years. There
has not unfortunately been any meaningful
increasing use of solar dryers in developing
countries for various reasons. These can be
attributed to: poor problem definition which makes
the developed dryers technically inadequate and
economically unviable; inappropriate dryer designs
due to the choice of construction materials and the
use of electrically operated fans; inadequate
understanding of the operation of solar dryers and
lack of design procedures.
In reference to clothes drying, traditional drying
which is frequently done in the open air, is the most
wide spread method used in developing and
undeveloped countries because it is the simplest and
cheapest method to dry clothes. Some disadvantages
of open air drying are the exposure of the clothes to
rain, dust and to direct sunlight which is undesirable
for some fabrics, the uncontrollable parameters of
drying is also a handicap.
This kind of system has been very little used out of
the domestic concerns, because it can be really
complicated to control the drying time and other
parameters, and, as a result, overall used to dry
clothes at home or in little communities. To break
this border and expand its usage for this task
(laundries, hospitals, residences it is necessary to
adapt the system to the particular conditions of each
case. For instance, there are not the same needs in a
hospital as in a laundry, therefore at the first time
ever, a drying process shall be available and
delimitated by patients clothes demand and for
laundries maybe the schedules are more flexible.
Is it a big challenge to apply one of these systems in
a hospital considering it must be covered by the
clean clothes demands all the time, and the clothes
must be dry before the next wet clothes from the
washing machines arrive to the dryer. Also the
system has to adapt to the user routines and doesnt
represent a large extra effort for them. Its process
must be simple and practical.
The application of these systems may be particularly
relevant to small hospitals with low budget, where
the substitution of the traditional electric systems by
others based on renewable energies, thereby
cheaper, might be an important money savings
which can be invested in employees, medical
equipment or anything else in need.
In the matter at hand, the Wachira Baramee Hospital
is a modest rural area Hospital where yearly budget
cannot afford the improving of the installations or
offer an efficient health attention. Even, depending
on the treatment requires, patients must be
transported to bigger close hospital in Phitsanulok,
Phichit or Nakhon Sawan.
.2. METHODOLOGY
First step was the literature review of many
documents from several fonts about related topics.
Thanks to that the idea of designing a system based
on solar dryers for some kinds of fruits and
vegetables was born.
To the project development it was consulted by two
universities that had large experience working on
this topic; Clean Energies Research Unit from
Naresuan University, in Thailand and the Doctor
Abebayahu Assefa from the Mechanical Engineering
Department of Addis Ababa University, in Ethiopia.
After acquiring enough knowledge to face the
project, it is was arranged a meeting with Wachira
Baramee Hospital director in order to elaborate a
solar system future emplacement diagnostic, as well
as, the study of the current process of washing and
drying clothes, and the machines used in this task.
Just before the energetic simulation, it was
performed some practical experiments to
determinate necessary data which will be used to
introduce the main parameters for the software
simulation. At the same time materials to assemble
the system were carefully studied for the different
parts and functions of the solar dryer, decisions
about materials were taken look for the best price-
performance relation, because we have not to
forgotten which the destiny of the dryer is and what
its needs are.
For the mathematical modelling it was used the
software Design Builder 2.3.6.005 with the
calculation engine Energy Plus 6.0.0.023. In the
system simulation it was opted for Natural
Ventilation in order to evaluate the conditions
inside the dryer (temperatures, airflow, air speed,
solar gains, humidity) and how these conditions
were related to the dryer performance. Main
hypothesis taken for the energetic simulation are:
Due to unavailable weather data of the precise
location in Design Builder, the closest location
getting from Meteonorm was Nakhon Sawan that
is 72 km away from Wachira Baramee, but with
really similar climate conditions.
Main material forming the system are; black
painted aluminium for the radiation absorber
sheets, alveolar polycarbonate for the transparent
coverings, galvanized steel for the skeleton and
structural profiles and polyurethane as insulating
material in the flat plate collector.
Ventilation and airtightness have not been
considered due to the particularities of our
simulation. Design Builder software is mostly used
to building simulations where natural or forced
ventilation is indispensable, but in our concern
only ventilation is through the bottom flat plate
collector hole and top drying chamber hole, so that
it is not necessary to program any kind of
ventilation.
In order to simulate the energy needs for the
drying process, clothes humidity content is set as a
negative latent load which must be compensated
by solar gains and when these gains are not enough
by and extra energy source.
Previously mentioned extra energy occasional
needs will be covered with a heat pump.
With the results of the simulation it is possible to
carry out the feasibility study of the clothes solar
dryer attending to the market prices for several
materials, raising energy cost trend and consumption
savings due to the dryer installation.
3. DATA ANALYSIS
Results needed to evaluate the viability of the solar
dryer installation are the ones which show us if the
conditions inside the system along the year are good
enough to cover the drying process needs. One of
the most important things is solar gains through the
dryer coverings in order to know if they are
appropriate to cover the drying process energy
demand, consequently temperatures and humidity
inside chamber are also meaningful, because they
are closely related to solar gains. Besides, airflow
conditions through the dryer are meaningful too in
order to know if it can be absorbed all the
evaporated water inside clothes. If energy demand
and airflow are large enough, our system will be
viable.
We are going to evaluate different cases. First one is
the dryer performance without any extra energy.
Second one is supposing the system with another
energy source to maintain a correct performance
during cloudy or sparsely sunny days.
3.1.- Without extra energy source
First simulation carried out was the performance of
the solar dryer with only heat gains coming from the
solar energy collected through the polycarbonate
panels of the drying chamber and flat plate collector
to evaluate if it was possible to carry the drying
process out all the year long in one hour.
To get energy demand from the drying process we
need to use the psychometric chard. Introducing
clothes relative humidity and dry bulb outside
temperature average for the initial and final desired
condition in clothes we can obtain the rest necessary
data. Relative humidity has been calculated
experimentally and also dry bulb outside
temperatures average thank to the simulation
software.

Table 1. Air properties
Temp
(C)
Relative
Moisture
(%)
Vaporization
enthalpy
(kJ/kg air)
Moisture
content
(g H2O / kg)
31,69 47.7 67.922 14.35
31,69 10 39.281 3.01

With these data we can calculate the necessary
energy per air kilogram and water grams existing per
kilogram of air:

Energy = 67.922 - 39.281 = 28.641 kJ/kg (1)

Hum. content = 0.01435 - 0.00301 =
0.01134 kg H2O / kg

(2)
At this moment we can calculate the energy needs
based on the calculus above. To introduce the energy
needs in Design Builder, we have to calculate energy
per floor area unit (W/m
2
), knowing that the dryer
area is 7.54 m
2
.
(Mair = Necessary air mass; E = energy need for
drying; Elec. P = Electric Power needs)

(3)
E = kg 28.6 kJ/kg = 18083.7 kJ (4)

(5)

(6)
With software previously mentioned we can obtain
also the radiant, dry bulb and operative temperatures
inside the chamber. Among the temperatures inside
the chamber, the most important one for the project
is the air, because the air humidity absorption
capacity increases with temperatures increase. In our
case this temperature normally ranges between 33C
and 65C. Thereby the temperatures evolution is
closely linked with the relative humidity percentage,
when temperature increases relative humidity
decreases to improve the system performance.
The values along the year for humidity, temperatures
inside chamber and solar gains are closely linked.
When the gains through coverings rise, temperatures
inside chamber also rise correspondingly. On the
contrary when these two curves get higher values the
moisture percentage decays correspondingly too.
Observing the hourly solar gains, it is clearly visible
hours between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. is a reasonable
range for the drying process. The sunrise time ranges
between 5.30 and 6.30 and the solar gains through
system collectors starts around 8 a.m. and go on
increasing until reaching the top into the interval
from 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. and later starting to decrease
around 6 p.m. For this reason it seems reasonable to
the range chosen for the three daily drying processes
and it is proposed this schedule: First drying at 11
a.m., second at 1 p.m. and third at 3 p.m.


Figure 1. Hourly solar gains

To improve the performance of the system, it would
be better to change the schedule depending on the
season and its weather conditions, but it is preferable
to set the same schedule along the year in order to
create time routines for the employees. The
approach of stagger the drying processes every two
hours is just in case of the process spending more
than one hour due to a human mistake or any other
problem.
There are some periods along some determined
cloudy days when the solar gains through the
transparent coverings are not enough to cover the
total demand from the drying process.
3.2.- With extra energy source. Heat pump.
After carrying out the energetic simulation of the
dryer with solar radiation as only heat input of the
system, we realize that sometimes along the year and
into the hour range previously explained (11 a.m. to
5 p.m.), the energy got inside the drying chamber is
not enough.
To solve this problem it has been decided to install
an extra energy source, concretely a heat pump. The
pump will be used only when the solar energy is not
enough to cover the energetic demands of the drying
process. In order to control the operation of our
pump, we will install a temperature sensor inside the
drying chamber which will activate or deactivate the
pump according to predetermined value, so that
when the value of this magnitude is lower than the
minimum value established, one automatism will
turn the pump on, conversely if this temperature
overtakes the default one, the heat source will be
switched off.
The calculation of the control temperature value
should be different in every particular case and time,
but in order to simplify the simulation we had
studied that every temperatures providing the
necessary energy to cover the energetic deficit
created by the latent load is close to 2,47 kW. With
all temperatures we have calculated the average
obtaining a set point temperature equal to 52.65 C.
It is supposed that from this value the performance
of the dryer will be good enough to carry drying
process out in less than one hour that is the
maximum time viable to not disturb the working
routines of the hospital.
Knowing the energy needs to carry out the drying
process inside the chamber and the solar gains along
the year, it is possible to calculate the energy amount
that heat pump must supply as the difference
between total energy needs and solar gains. For this
calculus, it has only taken into account the
difference previously explained during the three
supposed operation hours per day.
In the graph below it can be noted that behavior of
heat pump operation, obviously, more solar gains we
have, less extra energy supply we need. Months of
between July and August pump almost need not
working, however February and March most of the
heat supply come from the pump.


Figure 2. Heat pump monthly consumption

3.3.- Airflow
Furthermore of knowing if the energetic needs are
covered, is necessary as well as if the hot air flow is
enough to remove the water existing in the clothes.
In other words, while the air is taking the evaporated
water from the clothes exists suddenly it has no
more capacity to remove vapour and becomes
useless for dry, even negative, so that we have to be
sure that the air circulation through the chamber is
enough to remove the whole water amount existing
and to know the characteristics of the airflow which
we need (m
3
/s).
Going back to the psychometric chart parameters
obtained previously it is going to be necessary some
of them, concretely the specific volume which is
equal to 0.88 m
3
/kg and the mass of moisture per
mass unit of dry air 0,01134 kgH
2
O/kg air, both
under conditions of 31.69 C and 47.73 % of
moisture. Knowing that we have to remove 7.16 kg
of water, we can calculate the needed air volume
(m
3
). With the air mas necessary calculated with the
equation (3), it can be obtained the necessary
volume (Vair)

Vair = 0.88 m
3
/kg = 555.6 m
3

(7)
So that if the system has to dry the clothes in one
hour the flow inside must be 555.6 mj
3
/h (0.154
m
3
/s), and because dryer is chamber has a volume of
5.7 m
3
, it is necessary at least 98 air cycles. To
calculate with the simulation if the flow is enough, it
has been calculated the average wind speed through
the dryer, 1.54 m/s and the area of the air inlet 0.3
m
2
.

Airflow = 1.54 m/s 0.3 m
2
= 0.462 m
3
/s

0.462 m
3
/s > 0.154 m
3
/s
(8)

Attending to the results, it is possible to conclude
that the flow is appropriate for the drying process,
because it is more than the triple which is needed.

3.4.- CO2 emissions reduction
Every energy consumption reduction carries a CO
2

emissions reduction (CO
2
red) that is easily
calculable. Knowing that the CO
2
emissions rate in
Thailand is 0.65 kg of CO
2
per kWh produced by
electric energy, we only need to multiply this rate
for the energy savings due to the solar dryer
installation.
To calculate the energy saving (E.sav) due to the
installation of the solar dryer we have to subtract the
consumption from dryer to the consumption of
drying machines.

E.sav = 14782.50 80 = 14702.50 kWh (9)
CO
2
red = 14702.50 0.65 = 9556.625 kg (10)

3.5.- Economic study
Due to the low cost of the system and the
dimensions of the hospital, the elaboration of the
feasibility study is very simple. In our following
study is only necessary take into account the
consumption parameters of the current drying
system (savings), the expected consumptions due to
the solar dryer heat pump and initial investment for
the system installation.

Table 2. Comparison between drying machines and
solar dryer energetic consumption.
Initial Data
Wash Machines Solar clothes Dryer
E. Power (kW) 18.00
Energy needs
kWh/year
273
h/day 2.25 COP 3.4
kWh/day 41 kWh/year 80
kWh/year 14782.50 /kWh 5.00
/kWh 5.00 400.74
73912.50 O&M ( /kW) 0
Investment 50302

There is a great deal of uncertainty about future
energy prices, presently is close to 3.5 /kWh, but
the price is increasing quickly, last year energy price
0
10
20
30
40
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a
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F
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Energy needs
raised 30% and it is predicted to rise up to 5 /kWh.
After reaching this value, it is probably a stable
price, therefore the annual increase will not be more
than 2% or 3%. Anyways, the feasibility study has
to be carried out for the worst of the cases.
The study has been made for a period of 20 years
because it seems a reasonable minimum lifetime
according to the chosen material. Next table shows
the main indicators of feasibility for this project.

Table 2. Indicators of feasibility
Indicator Values
TIR 146.30%
VNA 1.077.872.00
RBC 22.568
Payback 1
4. CONCLUSIONS
Due to the installation of the dryer is going to carry
out in a hospital, we have to attend more factors than
technical and economic ones. Therefore, it must be
taken into account that the dryer can adapt to the
hospital needs and routines. This effort involves a
deeper study, including parameters like; clothes
demand, hospital purchasing power, employees
routines or design a model confortable enough for
the employees comparing with the previous drying
machines.
From the technical point of view, the designed solar
clothes dryer is viable and competitive comparing
with the drying machines used presently in the
hospital. Operation time supposed for the drying
process should not be more than one hour in any
case, so that it is a meaningless delay between 0 and
15 minutes at most.
Employees extra tasks in spite of the solar dryer
installation are only to hang the clothes on the
clotheshorse and push in/out them to/from the
drying chamber, process that shouldnt spend more
than 10 minutes. Moreover the use of the new
system doesnt need a specific training and does not
carry risks, so, not forget close the dryers back door
is enough.
As it can be seen in the previous feasibility study,
the project is totally feasible and the payback period
is even less than 1 year, thereby one little hospital
like Wachira Baramee Hospital can recover the
money invested very fast without damaging too
much the annual budget. Anyways, when this budget
is discussed with the hospital, it is sure that the
hospital can afford the initial investment easily.
At last, seeing the project from an ecological point
of view, this project carries a CO2 important
emissions savings

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is necessary the same analytical capacity to write a
thesis as to choose the most appropriate words and
thank to who have provided me the necessary
support to elaborate this project.
Thanks to my thesis tutor, Gema Milln Ballesteros,
for her worthwhile contributions, her patience with
me, for letting me steal a part of her time in order to
carry this project out.
Also thank to Panu Boonsong, because without his
Thai language skills and his infinite patience i could
not have make the diagnostic of the hospital.
A last, thank to every one of my friends throughout
my stay in Thailand, because you have made me
happy while i worked in this project.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
[2] Abebayehu Assefa, Thermal Analysis of Solar
Dryers, J.EAEA, Vol.15, 1998.
[2] A.M,Sayigh, Solar Energy Engineering, vol. 2.
[3] Guadalupe Gutirrez Santana, Evaluacin
potencial de las energas pasivas para el secado de
ropa. 2002
[3] Habtamu Tkubet Ebuy, Simulation of solar
cereal dryer using Trnsys. 2007
[3] Hugo D. Zurlo, Rubn Spotorno, Daniel A.
Rodrguez and Gustavo R. Figueredo, Estudio
comparativo de superficies colectoras y cubiertas
transparentes. 2002
[1] Yunus esngel, Heat and mass transfer Third
edition, chapter 12. 2006