A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1991

A wide range of drying equipment and methods are available for drying of rough rice. A Computer Model was built to assist agricultural research workers or farmers regarding the selection of technologies and equipment for a given situation, taking into consideration the detailed scale of operations including the harvesting and threshing processes, weather patterns, appropriate technologies, available heat resources and finally aiming at economic factors. Some major types of drying methods are analyzed over estimated useful life of drying equipment, using simple models suitable for final economic assessment, with a combination of other knowledge on the subject, mathematical modeling and computer simulation; to arrive at the Net Present Value of each drying method. Changing the data files of dryer parameters, paddy varieties, weather records is simple and makes the model applicable to different regions, countries, dryers. As data pertaining to Thailand were more readily available, the model is presently arranged to operate on such weather data, dryer data and alike. Therefore, the model has the potential to be used as a tool in dryer selection, since any number of dryers can be quickly analyzed, taking into consideration the pre- drying stages too, if one needs. Its greatest potential is the ability of rapidly providing the economic data in choosing the best system, in a particular situation.