A numerical and experimental research of the temperature distribution in a prototype solar dryer is
performed. Numerically, the temperature distribution in the solar dryer is investigated with FLUENT
ANSYS software. Experimentally, the temperature distribution of the solar dryer is evaluated by mean
temperature measurements on the inlet solar collector, inside and outlet of the cabinet. Comparison
between CFD simulation and the thermal measured show that at solar collector outlet there is a gooddegree of similarity between measured and calculated temperatures. However, inside the cabinet there is a
difference between measured and calculated temperatures. This disagreement is due to have been
considered a constant convection heat transfer coefficient in the ambient. In future works it will be
necessary to define a variable convection heat transfer coefficient as function of the time along the day.
While for the drying tests we obtained a 62% reduction in weight of the vanilla, this is a very well
reduction in time (one month) with respect the time required for the traditional process (three months).
For future research it will be studied the quality of the vanillina and will be compared with the one
obtained with the traditional process so it will be necessary to define if the accelerated non-traditional
process could maintain the quality required for commercial use of vanilla.