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• Ribbed triangular duct is proposed for an indirect type solar dryer (ITSD). • The new design has 28.78% higher effectiveness compared to ribbed rectangular duct SAH. • It exhibits a 60% reduction in moisture ratio for food samples. • The average diffusivity coefficient of food samples is enhanced by 93%. • For ITSD, ribbed triangular duct SAH exhibits superior performance. Triangular duct cross-section is introduced for solar air heater (SAH) of an indirect type of solar dryer (ITSD). Using computational study, the thermo-hydraulic performance of triangular duct SAH with inclined ribs for varying rib inclination (30° < α < 75°) in the turbulent flow regime (5000 < Re < 17500) is studied. With the rib configuration providing maximum thermos-hydraulic performance, a ribbed rectangular duct SAH is designed, and the performance of the same is compared to the former for similar heat input. Results show that the ribbed (α = 45°) triangular duct has 17% higher effectiveness compared to the latter and 79% when compared to smooth SAH. Ribs in triangular duct solar air heater facilitate the increase in temperature even in the core of the duct, delivering the air at 6 K additional temperature relative to a rectangular ribbed duct for same heat input and flow Re. The superiority of the ribbed triangular SAH is further confirmed by studying the drying characteristics of Okra and two variants of banana, namely Nendran and Robusta for the maximum temperature obtained at the outlet of the respective SAH. Various thin layer drying models available in the literature were analyzed, and Modified page model represented the drying behaviour with R2 = 0.99. For ITSD, ribbed triangular duct SAH exhibits a maximum of 60.3% reduction in moisture ratio with a maximum increase of 97.9% increase in average values of diffusivity coefficient confirming that it is an energy-efficient design for an ITSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CFD and exergy analysis of a solar air heater with semi-cylindrical sidewalls is proposed. • Semi-cylindrical sidewalls enhance the strength of secondary flow in a ribbed SAH. • A significant enhancement in the effectiveness parameter of 2.27 is obtained. • Lower exergy destruction leads to an enhancement of 95% in exergetic efficiency. • The proposed design outperforms ribbed rectangular SAHs for a wide range of Reynolds number. Solar air heater (SAH) with semi-cylindrical sidewalls and W-baffles is analyzed for energy and exergy efficiency in the turbulent flow regime. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is carried out for a fixed baffle inclination (β) and varying the relative baffle height (R h = e/D) and relative baffle pitch (R p = P/D) in the range 0.046–0.115 and 0.46–1.15, respectively. For Reynolds number (5000 < Re < 17,500), the numerical methodology is substantiated using experimental and theoretical correlations obtained from the literature. Smaller vortices near the sharp corners are removed by rounding the sharp edges, allowing the flow of fluid from inside and horizontal walls of the duct towards the semi-cylindrical sidewalls. This increases the overall turbulent kinetic energy. A peak augmentation of 3.24 and 4.03 times is obtained for Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor (f), respectively, in contrast to conventional SAH. With a maximum enhancement of 127% in the effectiveness parameter relative to smooth SAH, this novel SAH design is evidently energy efficient. Based on CFD results, new correlations are developed in terms of R h and R p , which predicts the values with an absolute deviation of 4% and 7.4%, respectively. With lower exergy destruction, maximum enhancement in thermal and exergetic efficiency is obtained as 40.7% and 95.4%, respectively, for the proposed SAH relative to conventional SAH. Upon comparison with ribbed rectangular duct SAH configurations, the present design with semi-cylindrical side walls outperforms at all flow Re. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]