The Development of an Automatic Control System for Charcoal Briquettes Drying

Abstract

This research describes the development of an automatic control system for charcoal briquettes drying. The developed system consists of temperature controller, timer, ignition unit, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, blower and speed control unit and model of drying chamber with X120 cm wide X 120 cm length X 56 cm height. One temperature sensor is installed to measure the controlled temperature at centroid of the chamber and another 8 sensors are installed at every upper and lower corners of chamber to study overall temperature inside the chamber. The experimental results of temperature control inside the drying chamber at 50, 60 and 70 °C with hot air flow rate of 300, 400 and 500 m³/h without wet charcoal briquettes show that the developed system can control the desired temperature with steady state error less than ±2 °C. The experimental results of drying 90 charcoal briquettes with weight of 13 kg at desired temperature of 60 °C illustrate that the system can reduce humidity by evaporate water from charcoal briquettes of 2.86 kg or 21.98% by weight with the temperature difference between upper zone and lower zone is of 0.03 °C.