About two-third of Ethiopian diet consists of injera, which has a strong culturalrnsignificance and high nutritional value, as it is rich in fibre, amino acids, calcium, iron and mostrnimportantly it is gluten-free. Injera is dried and prepared in times of food scarcity or for commercialrnand household usage. The objective of this thesis was to design and evaluate a mixed-mode naturalrnconvection solar injera dryer with unique vertical air distribution unite with 20 injera dryingrncapacity. rn Three dimensional simulation of unloaded solar dryer was developed to simulate thernperformance of the modified mixed mode solar dryer using the computational fluid dynamicsrn(CFD) software ANSYS FLUENT for month of July and April by solving the governing equationsrndescribing the unsteady fluid flow. Dual-band discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model, Speciesrntransport model and shear stress transport (SST) k-omega (k-ê™) turbulence models werernemployed. The dimensions of the dryer were: 2 m, 2 m rn, 1.4 m, 2.2 m, 1.5 m and 1 m for collectorrnlength, collector area, height of the vertical air distributer channel, the height of the dryingrnchamber, length and width of the drying chamber respectively. rn2rnC above thernambient throughout the drying period. The overall temperature distribution through the dryingrntrays shows a uniform temperature distribution. The average velocity and mass flow rate throughrnthe drying trays were found to be 0.1 m/s and 0.061 kg/s respectively and both were uniformlyrndistributed through the drying trays. There was a pressure gradient through the drying tray, whichrnhelps to maintain the airflow through the dryer. rnThe simulation result indicated the collector outlet temperature was 10rnornFrom the experimental result, it was clear that the modified mixed mode drier performancernwas higher by 19% when compared with other similar mixed mode drier. In addition, therntemperatures of the drying air inside the drier was found to be more than 5rnC from the ambientrntemperatures. A uniform temperatures distribution was noticed through the drier, this is the resultrnof the vertical air distributer channel, which was newly developed and integrated through therndrying chamber, and the collector and drying efficiency of the drier were found to be 30% andrn15.25% respectively. The drying rate of the drier was 2.634*10rnorn kg/s and the Verma thin layerdryingrnmodelrnfitsrnbestrnforrninjerarndryingrnbasedrnonrnthernXrn-5rn. The experimental resultrnwas compared with the simulation result and the simulated temperature result showed an averagernoverestimation on drying chamber by -1.5% and underestimation on collector outlet by 1.6 %.