Due to lack of information about the physical and mechanical properties of feed pellets which are very important to understand the behavior of the product during the processing operations such as transporting, packaging and storage processes and also, it is necessary in processing operations. The main objective of this work was to study the physical and mechanical properties to form an important database for four of the most popular feed pellets in Egypt. These properties include: linear dimensions, mean diameter, surface area, volume, mass, density, static friction coefficient, repose angle and crushing load. The engineering parameters results showed that the length and mean diameters were in the range of 0.50-2.44 and 0.40-1.24 cm for all pellet sizes with CV of 12-33 and 2-3 %. Feed pellet types in all sizes were cylindrical in shape. The surface areas ranged from 0.86-11.95 cm2 and the feed pellet mass ranged from 0.07-3.01 g depending on the feed pellet size. The volume ranged from 0.06-2.96 cm3 with CV of 11-31%, the bulk density ranged from 0.64-0.74 g/cm3 with CV of 23-36% and real density ranged from 1.02-1.15 g/cm3 with CV of 9-14% for all feeds. The repose angle ranged from 25.67-38.7o. The coefficient of static friction (C.S.F) ranged from 0.48-0.80 for all sizes and surfaces. The highest C.S.F was offered by concrete surface followed by the plywood and the galvanized steel surfaces. Crushing load increased with the pellet size ranged from 90.74 to 454.13 and from 29.5 to 348.35 N in vertical and horizontal position, respectively, depending on the feed pellet size. |
