Joe M. Bunn

Potential for Ambient Air Drying in South Carolina

ABSTRACT NATURALLY occurring air in South Carolina was found to have enough moisture holding capacity to make ambient air grain driers theoretically feasible. However, grains dried in such driers cannot be stored very long since the average weather conditions during the fall harvest season indicated a 14 to 15 percent equilibrium moisture content for corn.

Moisture Measurement in Biologically Active Material —Green Burley Tobacco—

ABSTRACT LAMINA, and midrib portions of burley tobacco plants were dried by five different methods. From the drying data, two methods of dry weight estimation were investigated. Initial moisture fraction was found to be directly related to the vapor pressure deficit of the drying air with both methods of dry weight determination.

A Solar Energy System for Curing Burley Tobacco

ABSTRACT IN a solar collector-rock bed system for curing burley tobacco the insulated rock bed supplied enough heat to reduce the relative humidity of the air in the cur-ing chambers by 12 to 17 percent as compared to a con-ventional chamber that used no heat. The uninsulated rock bed reduced the relative humidity by 5 to 10 per-cent. At present prices, a solar collector rock bed system cannot economically compete with fossil fuel systems for curing stalk-cut butley tobacco. To be economically com-petitive, solar energy systems for the farm will probably need to be multi-purpose.

Environmental Requirements for Storage of Baled Burley Tobacco

ABSTRACT Moisture and heat migration within baled burley tobacco are reported. Storage time, storage environment, bale density and initial moisture content were investigated. It was concluded that baled tobacco in storage reacts much the same as piles of tied hands of tobacco. That is, those storage and handling conditions that have worked with tied hands of tobacco in the past will work for baled to-bacco. The lower the storage temperature and/or the lower the moisture content of the tobacco, the longer the tobacco can be safely stored.

Drying equation for high moisture materials

An empirical equation, of simple form, is presented to describe the dynamic process of drying high initial moisture content materials (100% db and above). It is tested with drying environments. A comparison is made with a frequently used drying equation. The equation is not universally applicable, but is presented to fill a need for analytical description of drying data for materials dried from a high initial moisture content.