Breakage Characteristics of Granulated Food Products for Prediction of Attrition during Lean-Phase Pneumatic Conveying.

Pneumatic conveying is utilised in a variety of industries to convey food products exhibiting diverse handling characteristics. Attrition of particles caused by this conveying process can result in a number of undesirable outcomes such as loss in product quality or issues in subsequent handling processes. The ability to predict the breakage behaviour of particulate materials is desirable in both new system design and resolving issues in existing plants. This work considers two different particulate materials (Salt and Golden Breadcrumbs) across a range of particle sizes, and quantifies their breakage behaviour under varying impact conditions. Narrow size fractions of each material were degraded; material retained on 250 μm and 355 μm sieves for Salt, and 500 μm, 710 μm and 1,000 μm sieves for Golden Breadcrumbs. Velocity was found to be the most influential factor with respect to particle attrition. The results from the narrow size fraction tests were superimposed to form a simulated full size distribution breakage behaviour, which was then compared to the experimentally determined behaviour. A good agreement was found, however the proportion of material predicted for size fractions smaller than 355 μm for Golden Breadcrumbs and 180 μm for Salt was under-predicted. Recommendations for increasing accuracy of the prediction method are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]