Determination of Some Engineering Properties of Selected Groundnut or Peanut Varieties

Determination of Some Engineering Properties of Selected Groundnut or Peanut Varieties

Siddesh Marihonnappanavara^1* , Veerangouda. M² , Prakash. K. V² , Sushilendra² , Yadahalli. G. S³ , Vijay Kumar. K⁴

¹Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, India

²College of Agricultural Engineering, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, India

³ICAR-KVK, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, India

⁴Department of Seed Science and Technology, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, India

Corresponding Author Email: siddeshgouda@gmail.com

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.53709/ CHE.2020.v01i01.013

Abstract

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Introduction

Groundnut or Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) belongs to the family Leguminosae. It has short lived yellow flowers and is grown for its edible oil and protein-rich kernels or seeds as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions and the warmer areas of temperate regions of the world [23]. Peanut ranks 13^th most important food crop, 4^th most important source of edible oil and 3^rd most important source of vegetable protein in the world. Arachis hypogaea, of the pea family, develops in an underground pod and has thin brownish skin, usually containing two of these seeds. The peanut is an edible nutlike seeds of a plant. The crop is an important source of protein in human nutrition and livestock feeds [5]. Peanut is India’s major oilseed crop and an important agricultural export commodity. In India, though peanut is cultivated in one or more seasons (kharif, rabi and summer) nearly 80 per cent of the annual acreage and production comes from kharif crop (June-October) and accounting a total production of 7.56 million tonnes with an average yield of 1390 kg ha^-1 [2]. No part of the peanut is a waste. The whole crop without the nut can be used as animal feed or may also be used to replenish soil nutrients when it is burnt into ashes [21].

In India, traditionally, the peanut crop is threshed manually due to lack of suitable and simple mechanical devices for separation of pods from the vines of the peanut crop. The conventional method of separating the pods from the vines is by pulling with force by hand or by beating the pod over the edges of the stretched bamboo strip. These operations are time consuming and laborious, inherent unhygienic conditions and poor or unsatisfactory output like high peanut kernel breakages as a result of resulting from shelling [7]. Identifying the engineering properties will be valuable and necessary in designing and successfully operating numerous equipment employed in agricultural operations [3, 15 & 29]. The present investigation helps in the design and development of automatic groundnut or peanut crop thresher for threshing freshly harvested peanut crop.

The engineering properties of two peanut varieties [viz., R-8808 and KADARI-9] selected. The knowledge of some important engineering properties viz., physical, mechanical, aerodynamic and frictional properties of peanut crop like any other agricultural material is of paramount importance to facilitate the design and development of an automatic peanut crop thresher for freshly harvested peanut crop for threshing, conveying, cleaning, separation, packing, storing etc. Various researchers have studied these properties for various crops such as peanut [5, 7, 17, 23, 24 & 28],sunflower seed and kernel [19], bush mango [27], apricot fruits [12].

The object of this study was to investigate some moisture dependent engineering properties of the peanut, namely dimensions of pods, arithmetic and geometric mean diameter, sphericity, thousand pod weight, roundness, surface area, bulk density, moisture content of pod and vine aspect ratio, pod-vine ratio, force of attachment of pod, angle of repose, coefficient of friction and terminal velocity. This paper discusses the results of some relevant engineering properties of freshly harvested peanut crop.

Materials and Methods

The two varieties of freshly harvested peanut pods and vines were used for all the experiments in this study during the December season 2018-19. Peanut pods and vines were chosen by random sampling taken from research farm immediately after harvesting and used to determine the optimum engineering properties. The pods were cleaned to remove all the foreign matter such as dust, dirt, stones, chaff and broken pods. All the engineering properties of the peanut were determined at moisture levels of 39 per cent w.b. with three replications at each level as explained below.

A.     Physical properties of peanut pods

Two promising varieties of peanut crop (R-8808 and KADARI-9) were selected and their physical properties were measured, which serve as a basic information to decide the concave clearance and size of sieve openings in designing thresher.

i.     Dimensions of peanut pod

For both the varieties of peanut crops, 100 randomly picked pods were used for the present study. Since the three principal dimensions of peanut pods affected by moisture content, the measurements were carried when moisture content was 37-40% (w. b.) for pods and 39-42% for vines in both the varieties to avoid bias. The average size of the peanut pod was calculated in terms of linear dimensions such as length, width and thickness which were measured using vernier caliper with an accuracy of ±0.01 [20].

Get equation 1 here…

Geometric mean diameter is the cube root of the product of three semi-axes of pod. Following equations were used for calculating the arithmetic mean diameter (D_a) and geometric mean diameter (D_g) of the peanut pods [22].

Get equation 2 here…

Where, L is the length, W is the width and T is the thickness (Fig. 1.)

According to Mohsenin (1986), the degree of sphericity (U) can be expressed as follows:

Sphericity indicates the object’s shape relative to the sphere having the equal volume.

Get equation 3 here…

This equation was used to calculate the sphericity of pods in the present investigation.

i.     Thousand pod weight

Thousand pod weights were measured for ten random samples of 1000 pods each in an electronic balance with a sensitivity of 0.01 g [8].

ii.     Roundness

Roundness is a measure of the sharpness of the corners of the solid. Roundness was calculated using the relationship given by [22].

Get equation 4 here…

Where, A_p is the Largest projected area of pod in natural rest position (mm²) and A_c is the area of smallest circumscribing circle (mm²).

i.        Surface area

The surface area of an agricultural product generally indicates its pattern of behavior in a flowing fluid such as air, as well as the ease of separating extraneous materials from the product during cleaning by pneumatic means. The surface area of pod was found by analogy with a sphere of the same geometric mean diameter. Surface area of pod is calculated by using the following formula [7, 22, & 31].

Get equation 5 here…

i.       Bulk density

The bulk density of the agricultural products plays an important role in many applications such as sizing grain hoppers and storage facilities [16]. The bulk density of peanut pod was determined using a container of known volume. The container was filled with the peanut pods and weighed in an electronic balance. The bulk density was calculated by using the relationship reported by [32 & 22].

Get equation 6 here…

i.         Moisture content of pod and vine

Moisture content helps in the design of handling, threshing, dehulling, roasting, dehusking, conveying and milling equipment. The moisture content of peanut pods and vine were determined by using hot air oven method [4]. Three peanut pods and vine samples were oven-dried at 105 ^oC for 24 hours. The weight loss of sample was recorded and the moisture content was expressed in percentage (w.b.). The average moisture content of the peanut pod and vine was calculated using the following relationship [13].

Get equation 7 here…

i.           Aspect ratio

The aspect ratio (R) was calculated using the following equation [7, 11, & 20].

Get equation 8 here…

i.             Pod-vine ratio

Pod vine ratio is the percentage of the mass of the pod to vine. Five samples of peanut crops each weighing about one kilogram was taken. Bold pods were separated from the vines manually for each sample. The mass of the separated pods and vine as weighed separately for each sample using an electronic balance having 0.01g accuracy. The pod vine ratio was expressed as percentage of mass of pods to the vine.

B.        Mechanical properties of peanut pods

Threshing is the process of repeated pounding and dragging of the plant mass over a surface or through an aperture during which, the bond between the grain and panicle or pod and vine is broken. In the process of peanut crop threshing, the bond between the pod and the vine was broken due to induced tension or shear stress. Mechanical properties were also used to compute the energy requirement for threshing with a given mode and rate of load application.

                i.       Force of attachment of pod

Design of peanut crop thresher is governed by the force required to separate the peanut pod from the vine. The force of attachment is the force above which any increases in force may leads to separation of pods from vines. The procedure referred by [6] was used to determine the cutting force required for separating with a loading rate of
10 mm s^-1. The cutting force required to separate the peanut pods from vines was determined with the help of Texture analyzer. Texture analyzer apparatus was shown in Plate 1.

C.       Frictional properties

Designing of hoppers, chutes, pneumatic conveying systems, screw conveyors, forage harvesters, threshers etc. require information about the frictional properties such as angle of repose and coefficient of friction for better design and operation. The material commonly moves or slides in direct contact with the trough, casing and different system additives when used in mechanical and pneumatic conveying systems. Power requirement of the thresher was affected by numerous parameters and therefore, additional power should be provided to overcome the frictional losses. It was necessary to have the knowledge of frictional properties of agricultural materials to design any agricultural machinery. Thus, the frictional properties of peanut pods were determined concerning the standard procedures as discussed in the following sections.

    i.          Angle of repose

The angle of repose indicates the cohesion among the individual units of a material. Higher the cohesion, higher is the angle of repose. Flowability of material is usually measured using the angle of repose that is useful in the design of hopper [25]. The angle of repose is the angle between base and slope of the cone formed on a free vertical fall of peanut pods on to a horizontal plane. It was determined by following the procedure described by [30].

Get equation 9 here…

    i.           Coefficient of external friction

Coefficient of external friction is the sliding stress between the grain and the horizontal plane against the wall. The coefficient of external friction was measured by using a table provided with changeable surfaces. It consists of a horizontal plane and a bottomless open container and a pan. The coefficient of friction measuring apparatus was shown in Plate 2. The coefficient of friction for peanut pod was determined with respect to three test surfaces viz., plywood, MS sheet and wood by inclined surface method. The size 7.5 × 7.5 × 9.5 cm box was tied by cord passing over pulley and pan was attached to cord. The weights (W_eb) were put into pan until the empty box started to slide. Later, the box was filled the known weight of sample (W) and again the weights were again put into pan to cause sliding. The weights (W_fb) required to slide the filled box was recorded [9].

Get equation 10 here…

A.       Aerodynamic properties of peanut pod and vine

Aerodynamic properties of the particles indicate their behaviour in air circulation system [15]. In peanut thresher, the threshed peanut pods, chaff and foreign materials should be separated with the help of air stream which is produced by the blower. The knowledge of aerodynamic properties such as terminal velocity of the materials becomes necessary for the design of air conveying systems and the separation equipment [29].

    i.           Terminal velocity

The terminal velocity of peanut pods and vines were measured using an air column in which the 100g of material was suspended in the air stream. The particle’s terminal velocity may be defined as the air velocity at which a particle remains in suspended state in an air column. The terminal velocity using a test stand as shown in Plate 3. It consists of a 450 mm long vertical transparent glass tube with a diameter of 60 mm, which was used to suspend the particles in an air stream. The air was supplied by a suction blower fan powered by an electric motor. Relative opening of a regulating valve was provided at the blower output end and it was used to control the air flow rate. At the beginning, the blower output was set at a minimum. For each test, a known amount of sample was dropped from the top of an air column in an air stream. Aerodynamic properties of grain and straw are most important for designing a blower and setting the range of blower discharge. Air velocity was measured using a digital anemometer having a least count of 0.1 m s^-1 [14].

Results and discussion

The various crop parameters were determined for the selected peanut varieties and are presented in Table 1. The vines and pods were selected from the bulk volume of both the varieties to reduce the variation in linear dimensions. From the Table 1, it was observed that, the mean height of peanut plant from both the varieties was found to be 631.75 mm. The standard deviation was found 23.25 and 24.03 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean length of vine from both the varieties was found to be 517.95 mm. The standard deviation was found to be 24.59 and 23.99 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean thickness of peanut pod from both the varieties was found to be 11.91 mm. The standard deviation was 0.64 and 0.684 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean width of peanut pod from both the varieties was found to be 12.30 mm. The standard deviation was 0.34 and 0.373 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean length of peanut pod from both the varieties was found to be 21.72 mm. The standard deviation was 0.59 and 0.678 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The number of pods per plant was 16 pods for both KADARI-9 and R-8808 varieties. The weight of hundred pods was found to be 117.65 g and 116.17 g for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean weight of thousand peanut pod from both the varieties was found to be 1262.46 g. The mean moisture content of the freshly harvested peanut pod was observed as 38.90 per cent and 39.23 per cent for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety. Similarly the mean moisture content of the vine was observed as 41.25 and 41.39 per cent for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. Similar results were perceived [5, 17 & 23].

Physical properties

From the Table 2, the roundness of peanut pods was found as 0.71 for KADARI-9 variety and 0.66 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.023 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The sphericity was found to be 0.64 for KADARI-9 variety and 0.636 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.028 and 0.015 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The surface area of peanut pods was 604.87 mm² for KADARI-9 variety and 714.86 mm² for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 33.679 and 39.794 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The bulk density of peanut pods was found as 0.268 for KADARI-9 variety and 0.256 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.008 and 0.009 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The arithmetic mean diameter of peanut pods was 14.32 mm for KADARI-9 variety and 16.04 mm for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.418 and 0.466 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The geometric mean diameter of peanut pods was found to be 13.412 mm for KADARI-9 variety and 14.98 mm for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.444 and 0.497 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The aspect ratio was found to be 0.962 for KADARI-9 variety and 0.948 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.042 and 0.036 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The pod vine ratio was found to be 3.66 for KADARI-9 variety and 3.72 for R- 8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.081 and 0.107 mm for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. These results are in close agreement with [1, 10, 18 & 23].

Mechanical properties of peanut pods

From the Table 3, it was observed that the mean value of force required to detach the pod from vine was 6.23 kg for KADARI-9 while it was 3.61 kg for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found to be 0.233 and 0.169 per cent for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The similar results were reported by [6 & 17].

Frictional properties of peanut pod

From the Table 4, frictional properties of peanut pods of KADARI-9 and R-8808  were determined and presented in Table 4. The angle of repose of peanut pods was found to be 27.53° for KADARI-9 variety and was 28.91° for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was 1.048 and 0.842 for the KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The mean value of coefficient of friction was found to be maximum 0.577 on wood, where it was minimum 0.432 on MS sheet. The standard deviation was found 0.023, 0.019 and 0.035 for KADARI-9 and the standard deviation was found 0.023, 0.02 and 0.036 for R-8808 variety. The similar results were observed by [26 & 17].

Aerodynamic properties of peanut pod and vine

From the Table 5, terminal velocity of peanut pod was found 10.25 m s^-1 for KADARI-9 variety and 8.12 ms^-1 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was 0.384 and 0.304 for the KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. The terminal velocity of peanut vine was found to be 4.52 m s^-1 for KADARI-9 variety and 4.39 m s^-1 for R-8808 variety. The standard deviation was found as 0.212 and 0.206 for KADARI-9 and R-8808 variety, respectively. Similar results were reported by [7 & 26].

Conclusions

The mean length and height of peanut plant was found to be 517.95 mm and 631.75 mm. The mean length and thickness of peanut pod was found to be 21.72 mm and 11.91 mm, respectively. The number of pods per plant was found to be 16 and mean weight of thousand peanut pod was found 1262.46 g. The mean moisture content of the freshly harvested peanut pod and vine was observed as 38.90 to 39.23 per cent and 41.25 to 41.392 per cent. The mean roundness of peanut pods was found 0.685. Hence, peanut pods were neither round nor spherical, but may be oblong in shape. The mean aspect and pod vine ratio was found 0.955 and 3.70. The mean value of force required to detach the pod from vine was found 4.92 kg. The terminal velocity of peanut pod and vine was found 8.12 to 10.25 m s^-1 and 4.39 to 4.52 m s^-1. The mean angle of repose of peanut pods was found 28.22°. The mean value of the coefficient of friction was found to be a maximum 0.577 on wood, where it was a minimum 0.432 on MS sheet.

Acknowledgement

The author presents sincere thanks to Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering and University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka, India. The Author also acknowledges the support by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Human Resource Development Group, for having sanctioned CSIR Senior Research Fellowship [08/392(0004)/2018-EMR-I] to the Ph. D Scholar. This paper presents the part of the findings reported in Ph. D (Ag. Engg.) Thesis submitted by author to the UAS, Raichur.

Author contributions

Mr. Siddesh, Marihonnappanavara was the Ph. D Scholar who carried out the experiments under the guidance of Dr. M. Veerangouda, Dean (Ag. Engg.), CAE, Raichur. I sincerely confess that it would have been a daydream on my part to accomplish this present investigation without the involvement of this ever helpful personality. I avail this opportunity to express sincere thanks to my advisory committee members namely Dr. K. V. Prakash, Dr. Sushilendra, Dr. G. S. Yadahalli and Dr. Vijay Kumar K, for giving valuable suggestions, guidance and also extending the technical support in editing the manuscript.References

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