Soybean Seeds Mass Transfer Simulation during Drying Using Finite Element Method

Drying conditions affect the quality of dried soybean seeds. Therefore, an accurate description of the drying rate is required. In this study the finite element formulation and solution of diffusive moisture transfer equation was presented to improve seed drying simulation of axisymmetric bodies. The Fick’s diffusive model was solved. For experiment, thin layer soybean seed, ‘Villiamz’ variety, was dried at drying air temperatures 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70°C with three replications at a fixed drying air velocity of 1 m/s. Good agreement was observed when the output of the model was compared to that of experimental data. The mean relative deviation mudulus (P) and modeling efficiency (EF) were used for comparing simulated and experimental data.