STUDY ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF SUNFLOWER SEEDS.

Some physical and mechanical properties of sunflower seeds were studied. The measured parameters were linear dimensions, thousand grain mass, geometric mean diameter, sphericity, surface and projected area, volume, shape parameters (such as flakiness ratio and elongation ratio), true and bulk densities, porosity, angle of repose and static coefficient of friction of the Shamshiri variety in the moisture range from 6.3 to 20% (w.b.) using standard methods. Average rupture force, deformation and absorbed energy at rupture point of the sunflower seeds under compression as well as the extent of physical damage to seeds due to impact were also determined over a range of moisture contents between 1.8% and 20.3% (w.b). The results showed a variation of 14.32 to 31.00 mm for length, 4.73 to 9.82 mm for width and 2.36 to 6.67 mm for thickness of sunflower seeds. The values of the thousand grain mass, seed volume, true density, bulk density and porosity of sunflower seeds were between l49.81-167.77g, 99.05-628.9 mm3, 444.39-521.78 kg/m3, 269.06-275.57 kg/m3 and 39.09-17.18% respectively. The rupture force, deformation, and absorbed energy increased with increase in moisture content from 1.8 to 14.5%, while decreased with further increasing of moisture content from 14.5 to 20.3%. The mean value of percentage of physically damaged seeds increased from 2.75 to 10.81% with increasing the impact velocity from 40.8 to 62.3 m/s. In both impact orientations, the total damaged seeds increased with increase in impact velocity for all moisture contents of seeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]