APPLICATION OF HOT AIR TRAY DRYING IN SMALL SCALE TRADITIONAL HOME ROOF TILES MANUFACTURE CLUSTER IN NGUNUT SUB-DISTRICT EAST JAVA INDONESIA

Home roof tiles cluster located in Ngunut Sub-district, East Java Indonesia has been developed since 1970. In such traditional tiles manufacturing business sun drying is still used and the main problem is the long drying time and its dependency on the season. Uris work intends to solve the main problem by implementing hot air tray drying instead of the sun drying. Hot air drying at air temperature range 50 - 90°C and air velocity ranging from 0.4 m/s to -0.6 m/s resulted in moisture diffusivity within wet tile range 2.46xl0-4-4.20x10-4 m 2/s and drying rate range 25-35 gr H20/(m2.mnt). Application of hot air tray drying instead of sun drying result in reduction of total drying time from 5 days to one day, then production capacity significantly increases. Furthermore, another major advantage of the application of hot air tray drying is its independency on the seasons, since hot air drying will running well in both dry and rainy season.