SOLAR CURING FACILITIES FOR BURLEY TOBACCO.

A solar curing structure consisting of four types of forced ventilation curing chambers was used to cure burley tobacco during the Fall 1976. The objective was to use solar heat to reduce high relative humidity during curing. The chambers were a conventional chamber with metal roof, a transmitting-roof chamber with a fiberglass roof, a solar-collector-no-storage chamber, and a solar-collector-rockbed-storage chamber. The average daily relative humidity was up to 5 percentage points less in the transmitting-roof chamber and the solar-collector-no-storage chamber as compared to the conventional chamber. The solar-collector-rockbed system supplied enough heat to reduce the relative humidity from the 80 EN DASH 90% range to the desired 65 EN DASH 70% range for 3 days of rainy weather. Among the conclusions reached are that the solar-collector-rockbed-storage system for curing burley tobacco was superior to a solar-collector-no-storage system and a transmitting-roof system because it provided heat to modify the environment during critical periods of high humidity. The rockbed provided an adequate heat supply for three days without replenishing.