مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Determination of the Physical Properties of the Canola Seeds in Different Moisture Content Levels

Abstract :

The purpose of the research was the studying of the effects of three different moisture contents constituting of 6.36, 16.54 and 25.94% on the physico-mechanical properties of canola seeds. Turkish cultivar of canola seeds called as ‘Turan’ was used in the research. With the research, it was found that the dimensional properties such as the length, diameter, projection area and geometric mean diameter and volumetric properties like the bulk density, one thousand seed mass, porosity and sphericity were changed with the increases in moisture content of canola seeds. One thousand kernel mass and kernel volume of canola seeds are determined to increase for the moisture contents examined as 6.36, 16.54 and 25.94 %, respectively. The projection areas of canola kernels were investigated with two different digital image processing software developed for digital image processing and evaluation purposes, as well as with the mathematical formula given by Mohsenin (1986) and Sitkei (1986) according to the planes in the three dimensional space. In the study, true density was observed to increase with the moisture content increments in canola seed, while the bulk density of seed decreased with moisture content increments. Similarly, the equivalent spherical diameter of canola kernels was observed to increase with the moisture content. The variations on the sphericity of canola kernels depending on the moisture contents were as the increasing way while the moisture contents of canola seeds went from 6.36 to 16.54%, and then in decreasing way when they increased to 25.94%. Yet, it was seen that the variations of the oblateness of the seeds decreasingly increase with the increases of moisture contents. Finally, terminal velocity of the canola seeds investigated with this study showed a logarithmic variation trend by increasing with the moisture content increases.