FEATURES OF RAPE SEEDS DRYING AND THE POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVING ITS EFFICIENCY
The article is devoted to the study of drying rape seeds with high initial humidity. The national economic importance of rapeseed was considered, the latest data on the volume of cultivation of this crop were analyzed, as well as the works of recent years devoted to the improvement of existing and development of new technologies for drying rapeseed seeds were considered. According to the results of the analysis of these works, it was concluded that none of the proposed technologies can reduce the moisture content of rape seeds from 20% or more to the normative values of 7% per pass through the dryer. The research methodology was determined and a number of experiments were conducted to study the kinetics of drying and cooling of rape seeds. Based on the data obtained during the experiments, the optimal drying modes of rape seeds were determined and an improved technology of recirculation drying, adapted for seeds with high initial humidity, was proposed. The innovation consisted in supplying heated air to the upper drying zones of the recirculation and cooling shafts, due to which drying was provided under quasi-isothermal regimes. At the specified modes equality of temperatures at the beginning and the end of process was provided. This phenomenon is due to the intermediate cooling of the grain due to intensive evaporation of moisture due to the expenditure of internal energy accumulated by the grain in the heating process. Further, a number of production experiments were carried out, the results of which led to the conclusion that the proposed drying technology contributes to improving the productivity of grain drying equipment, reducing costs and better preservation of the quality characteristics of the dried seeds.