Browsing by Author "Farrero, Bernardo"
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- A case for including solar dehydrators in food processingPublication . Silva, Paulo Bruno Rossi da; Farrero, Bernardo; Ribeiro, Luís FrölénThe access of small-scale food producers and big agro-industry players to equipment is abyssal. The latter have access to well-developed and appropriate technology. In this article, one proposes a novel design for food dehydration equipment to serve small-scale producers, reducing their technological gap regarding dehydration. Equipment that dries more than 1000 kg daily is costly and consumes much energy. Lower capacity machines, up to 100 kg per day, are often one-off handcrafted projects built with reused materials without dimensioning supporting the design. They are usually not easily transportable and underperform: the drying chamber tends to overheat; the solar collector's area is usually 50% inferior to the required product quantity. One proposes a mobile dehydrator with a solar collector area 7 times larger than average, promoting moisture removal by naturally convected airflow at lower temperatures, reaching up to 4,5 m/s and 44,3 °C inside the entrance of the drying chamber. Under these flow conditions, the food's organoleptic properties are preserved compared to the often high-temperature drying handspun machines continually adopted by small-scale producers. The internal layout of the drying chamber was also changed to promote the increase of turbulence and reduce the existence of recirculation areas, thus facilitating the transfer of moisture from the food to the airflow. The expected result from implementing this novel design is avoiding food losses due to natural degradation by increasing the product's shelf life before transport and transformation. Solar equipment has zero operational costs, and all these advantages are expected to encourage small-scale dehydration technology.
- Experimental optimization of hydraulic mini-turbinesPublication . Farrero, Bernardo; Rosa, Sérgio; Agostini, FabianThe use of technologies to obtain energy from renewable sources has developed extensively over time and some of them are consolidated, such as hydroelectric power plants and wind turbines. On the other hand, there are still areas with a lot to increase and that has great potential. One of the energy sources is water. Hydroelectric is one of the main renewable generators of. However, there are still areas of technology with a low degree of maturity, such as energy from marine currents and the generation of electricity through mini-turbines in river flows. In this sense, this work presents a method based on the Blade Element Moment Theory to calculate the blade elements of a horizontal axis mini turbine, vary its geometry and allow a better e of power. After the creation of a code in the Excel software and using parameters already calculated in another work, five different propellers were developed. Through the results obtained through the code, the modelling was carried out in the SolidWorks software. Then, it was possible to do the optimization of the chord of the blades, 3D print prototypes, and make the experimental comparison. The results of the experimental tests carried out showed the influence of the tip speed ratio factor (λ) on the performance of an axial propeller and. These results are consistent with the literature that recommend values of λ based on the number of blades that make up a propeller. On the other hand, the importance of considering the number of blades that will make up a propeller when projecting the aerodynamic profile and how this affects its performance was demonstrated.
- Relatório final projeto landfoodPublication . Ribeiro, Luís Frölén; Farrero, Bernardo; Rossi da Silva, Paulo BrunoEste relatório técnico final elaborado pelo Instituto Politécnico de Bragança sobre as atividades desenvolvidas no projeto "LandFood" para a Landratech. Relata o desenvolvimento de um secador solar para a pré-secagem de bolotas no campo.
- Responsive dehydration: sensor-driven optimisation of production cycles in a solar dehydratorPublication . Rossi da Silva, Paulo Bruno; Farrero, Bernardo; Silva, Arthur Marangoanha; Babo, Pedro S.; Ribeiro, Luís FrölénDrying is an effective method for preserving food. Compared to freezing, it consumes less energy and produces equivalent results. Solar heat is a great way for small farmers to create sustainable and affordable goods since it costs no energy. This article describes and explains how to operate equipment developed to address this issue. The equipment is currently undergoing experimental validation, and real-time monitoring and user notification systems have been installed to improve the production experience and the post-harvest conservation of food products. Additionally, the installed tracking system allows farmers to keep track of their products from the farm to the factory. This article demonstrates how integrated monitoring and tracking systems can enhance small farmer production by optimizing the drying process of acorns.
- Revisiting solar dryers for small to medium productionPublication . Farrero, Bernardo; Rossi da Silva, Paulo Bruno; Ribeiro, Luís FrölénThis article presents an overview of passive solar dryers, an ancient technique that may be revived for food drying capacities below one ton/day. The art of dehydrating food has existed for centuries and was developed to preserve food by extracting its water content, thus delaying its natural deterioration. This article reviews traditional solar dryers and proposes a verification parameter k, parametrising the solar collector’s size by the drying capacity. The modelling and parametrisa tion of the k constant allowed the evaluation of the examples of tra ditional models from the literature systematically. Results showed that 80% of the evaluated constructed solar dryers might underperform due to lower solar collecting surfaces than those projected by the k parameter.