ناصر قاسمیان

The main objective of this work was prediction of the moisture content of papaw during hot air-drying in a cabinet dryer using both mathematical and GMDH (group method of data handling). The influence of air temperatures (40, 50 and 60 C) and fruit slices thickness (3, 5, 7 mm) on moisture ratio were investigated. Exactly 50% of the data points were used for training and 50% for testing. Furthermore, eight well-known empirical models were subjected to experimental data for modeling of the drying process. The determination coefficient (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) computed for the GMDH model were 0.9960 and 0.0220. Among the empirical models considered, the Two terms model, was found to be more suitable for predicting drying of papaw fruit slices with the values of R2= 0.9974 and RMSE= 0.0123. Thus, it was deduced that the estimation of moisture content of papaw fruit could be modelled by GMDH method as good as the best empirical models.