The efficient performance of a solar dryer is mainly depending on the good distribution of the thermal and flow field inside the dryer body. This paper presents simulation results of a solar dryer with a biomass burner as backup heater. The flow and thermal fields were simulated by CFD tools under different operational modes. GAMBIT software was used for the model and grid generation while FLUENT software was used to simulate the velocity and temperature distribution inside the dryer body. The CFD simulation procedure was validated by comparing the simulation results with experimental measurement. The simulation results show acceptable agreement with the experimental measurements. The simulations have shown high temperature spot with very low velocity underneath the solar absorber and this is an indication for the poor design. Many other observations have been visualized from the temperature and flow distribution which cannot be captured by experimental measurements. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.