Determination and analysis for parameters of shape, size, physical and mechanical properties of soybean grains

Abstract

Soybean is considered as one of the most important cereal grains. The shape, size, physical and mechanical properties of soybean grains are playing a significant role in transportation, storage and processing. However, the study of these properties of soybean grains up to now is not systematic and in-depth. In this paper, three varieties of soybean grains are selected to determine and analyze these properties. Moreover, the effect of moisture content ranging from 8 % to 23 % on these properties is also studied. It is shown that the shape of soybean grains is approximate to ellipsoid. Three axial dimensions follow the normal distribution approximately, and they have certain functional relation between each other and have positive linear relation with moisture content. The parameters of the physical and mechanical properties have different variation laws with increase of moisture content. This paper can provide a reference to describe the characteristic of soybean grains group realistically and choose parameters in DEM simulations.