ENERGY USAGE FOR LOW TEMPERATURE GRAIN DRYING WITH OPTIMIZED MANAGEMENT.

A technique is presented to solve the control problem associated with minimizing the operating energy costs of a low temperature corn drying system considering predicted varying ambient weather conditions. The maximum effective total heat change of the grain mass was used in a modified critical path method of solving network flow problems to select the way of operating the controls. The effects of the different control strategies were determined from a nonequilibrium, empirical, low temperature, thin layer drying model that was developed to simulate drying and spoilage of corn in the deep bed.