Online measurement of hay drying

The company Lasco builds and sells hay drying systems, which operate the hay drying supported by an air-to-air heat pump. To evaluate the efficiency of the system, it is necessary to be able to determine the drying capacity in relation to the energy used (kg of water extracted per kWh of electrical energy). This is possible by gravimetrically determining the weight loss of the material to be dried by weighing it in and out. However, this method does not provide any information about the efficiency as a function of the degree of drying of the material to be dried. For this reason, online monitoring of the moisture removal rate and efficiency is to be developed by determining the drying capacity in the air volume flow of the drying system. The project is being carried out as part of an innovation cheque.