DETERMINATION OF THE MOISTURE-DEPENDENT PHYSICAL AND AERODYNAMIC PROPERTIES FOR FENUGREEK SEEDS TO PREDICT THE BEST CLEANING SYSTEM

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Ag. Eng. Dept., Fac of Agric. Saba Basha, Alexandria Univ., Egypt.

Abstract

Some physical and aerodynamic properties of fenugreek seeds were measured as a function of moisture content. The data obtained during experiments showed that there were significant deviations in all of the measured parameters for fenugreek seeds. Increasing seeds moisture content from 13 to 27%(w.b) resulted in increasing the average length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter, seed volume and thousand seed weight from 4.29 to 5.13 mm, 2.97 to 3.11 mm, 1.87 to 2 mm, 2.87 to 3.17 mm, 19.5 to 26.6 mm3 and 15.6 to 19.2 g respectively, while sphericity and bulk density decreased from 67.4 to 61.9 % and from 800.6 to 722.2 kg/m3 respectively. The static coefficients of friction on wire mesh screen, the terminal velocity and the projected area increased from 0.43 to 0.56, from 6.6 to 8.11 m/s and from 0.11 to 0.14 cm2 respectively at the above mentioned moisture content range. A computer program was developed to calculate the number of cleaning stages according to the physical and aerodynamic properties of fenugreek seeds to maximize cleanliness, MOG rejected, separating efficiency and minimize seed loss.

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References

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