The Moisture Content Effect on Some Physical and Mechanical Properties of Corn (Sc 704)

Mohammad Reza Seifi and Reza Alimardani

Journal of Agricultural Science, 2010, vol. 2, issue 4, 125

Abstract: Physical and mechanical properties of grains are necessary for the designing the facility of storage, handling and processing of agricultural products. Physical and mechanical properties of corn grains were determined as a function of moisture content in the range of 4.73-22% w.b. (wet basis) using standard techniques. The average length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter, equivalent diameter, arithmetic diameter, sphericity, angle of repose, grain volume, surface area and aspect ratio ranged from 11.62 to 12.60 mm, 7.27 to 7.98 mm, 4.47 to 4.71 mm, 7.20 to 7.77 mm and 7.63 to 7.96 mm, 7.77 to 8.43 mm, 62.31% to 62.00%, 49° to 58°, 209.66 to 265.00 mm3, 137.69 to 160.09 mm2 and 63.05% to 63.77% as the moisture content increased from 4.73-22% w.b. With increase in moisture content, the bulk density was found to decrease from 710 to 649 kgm-3 whereas true density and porosity increased from 1250 to 1325 kgm-3 and 43.2% to 51.02%. In the moisture range from 4.73% to 22% w.b., studies on rewetted corn grains showed that the thousand grain weight (TGW) increased linearly from 271.0 to 321.4 g. The static coefficient of friction of corn grains increased linearly against surfaces of three materials, namely, plastic (0.32–0.51), plywood (0.48–0.60) and galvanized iron (0.38–0.65) and the static angle of repose increased from 49º to 58º when the moisture content increased from 4.73% to 22% w.b. The mechanical properties of corn were determined in terms of average rupture force and rupture energy. Rupture energy of the corn grains generally increased in magnitude with an increase in moisture content, while rupture force decreased for compression.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/5960/6224 (application/pdf)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/5960 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:2:y:2010:i:4:p:125

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Agricultural Science from Canadian Center of Science and Education Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Canadian Center of Science and Education ().