Published Paper Details:

Drying is veryimportant process in the manufacture of POP (Plaster of Paris) Sheets which are usedfor false ceilings in households.Efficient drying of POP sheets gives proper finishing and consumes less time. Generally these POP sheets are dried in open atmospheric condition which takes long time to dry. The main aim of this project is to design, fabricate and test the solar dryer to reduce the drying time of the POP sheets.The project work is carried out based on the requirement of a small scale industry located at Piduguralla, Guntur district, A.P. which manufactures POP sheets. The design of a solar dryer consists of absorber plate made of GI sheet and reflector plate made of Steel sheet which is placed at the backside of the dryer.The test results gave temperature about 45OC by modifying the experimental steps. The experiment conducted to remove the moisture by keeping the sheets inside the dryer. The test results have shown that the moisture removed was more than 50% when they are kept in the dryer compared with the drying in open atmosphere. The test results were compared by modifying the experimental setup by replacing steel sheet with clear polyvinyl sheet, to decrease the cost of solar dryer. The moisture removed from POP sheets with this setup is almost same as that of POP sheets dried in open atmosphere. Hence it is suggested to use a solar dryer with steel reflector at the backside.