علیرضا یوسفی

: In this research, infrared drying of thin-layer quince slices with thickness of 5 ± 0.24 mm was investigated at four levels of radiation power. The final temperatures of 50, 60, 70 and 80 °C were achieved by regulating the radiation power. A comparative study was performed among adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and 10 well-known empirical models to predict the drying kinetics. The ANFIS modeling results showed an excellent prediction of moisture content value (R2 = 0.9998 and RMSE = 0.0041). Among the empirical models, Midilli model fitted the experimental data well for the whole range of temperatures (R2 = 0.9987–0.9994 and RMSE = 0.0068–0.0098). Effect of final drying temperature on the sample color, shrinkage, texture and rehydration ratio was also investigated. Analysis of variance of quality parameters showed that the final drying temperature had a significant effect on the color, shrinkage and texture (p < 0.05). The final drying temperature of 80 °C had a negative effect on the color, shrinkage and texture of samples.