The solar drying unit with a solar air heater and a storage unit were used for thermal testing. Cauliflowerand Ladies finger were dried using the dryer and the effect of thermal storage was studied. Different quantities of storage material (585kg,166kg and 48kg) were employed to study their performance on drying. Pebble bed storage was employed. The collector efficiency was found to be 23-37 % for Cauliflowerand 21-36% for Ladiesfinger. The efficiency of the dryer was 32-41 % for Cauliflower and 30-39% for Ladiesfinger. The moisture content of Cauliflower was reduced from 74% to 7.1% and 82% to 6.8% for Ladiesfinger. It was seen that the product dried under solar dryer has faster drying rate (8hrs for Cauliflower and 9hrs for Ladies finger) when compared to open sun drying (9.5 hrs for Cauliflower and 10hrs for Ladies finger).
