Engineering Properties of Tiger Nut Seeds Relevant to the Design of Cleaning and Sorting Machine

Abstract

In this study, selected physical properties (size and shape, volume and density, surface area, weight, spherecity, coefficient of friction, angle of repose, as well as terminal velocity) of the brown type of tiger nut seed were determined using standard procedures. The average values of the surface area (206.12 mm2), geometric mean diameter (7.29 mm), spherecity (74.39 %), coefficient of friction for the three materials used were 0.37, 0.32 and 0.26 respectively (0.32), the mean values of the angle of repose of tiger nut seed for wood (20.5°), glass (17.°5) and metal (14.4°) and terminal velocity of 17.60 mm/s of the tiger nut seed at moisture content of 17 % (wb) were used in this study. These data are important for designing of cleaning and sorting machines of Tiger nut seeds.