ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF SELECTED GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS HYPOGEA L.) VARIETIES

Abstract

Engineering properties of groundnut pods play an essential role in designing of threshing equipment, in order to decide the cylinder speed, concave clearance, sieve sizes and seed drop mechanisms. The present study aimed to determine the engineering properties of pods of six groundnut varieties viz., ICGV-00351, KADARI-9, R-8808, R-2001-2, R-2001-3 and TMV-2. The results revealed that, the computed mean value of roundness and perimeter were found to be 0.72 and 78.53 mm, respectively. The sphericity and surface area of all the varieties were in the rage of 0.62 to 0.71 and 605.26 to 778.43 mm2 with a mean value of 0.66 and 692.69 mm2, respectively. The geometric mean, arithmetic mean, square mean and equivalent diameter were found to be 14.82, 15.89, 22.13 and 17.62 mm, respectively with an average bulk density of 0.26 g cm-3. The mean value of pod-vine ratio for six groundnut varieties was found to be 3.59. The groundnut pods were neither round nor spherical, but oblong in shape. It was observed that, the mean value of force required to detach the pod from vine was found to be 4.28 kg. The terminal velocity of groundnut pod and vine were found to be 8.73 and 3.91 m s-1, respectively. The angle of repose of groundnut pods ranged from 26.36° for TMV-2 to 29.09° for R-8808. The mean values of coefficient of friction of the selected varieties of groundnut pods on plywood, MS sheet and wood were found to be 0.559, 0.406 and 0.623, respectively.