OPTIMAL USAGE OF STIRRING DEVICES IN LOW TEMPERATURE CORN DRYING.

The paper reports on a study to investigate some of the proposed advantages of stirring devices and to present a comparison of the energy operating costs, the time to complete drying, and the costs of overdrying for five different ways of managing stirring devices. A computer simulation model was used to describe the natural air drying of corn using actual Central Indiana weather data for good, typical, and bad drying years. For each of these years five stirring management techniques, or frequencies, were used: constant operation, stirring for one interval a day, stirring one interval a week, stirring one interval at the start of the drying process, and not stirring.