Abstract
The separation of soft-shell crawfish from the hard-shell (or intermolt) population is the key step within soft-shell crawfish culture. Automated soft-shell crawfish separation in a culture tray is accomplished by utilizing hydraulic force and electrical inhibition gates. The impacts of water flow rate, surface roughness of the raceway tray, and crawfish loading density upon the operation of the automatic soft-shell crawfish separation process were evaluated. The flow rate which resulted in the desired hydraulic force for optimal performance ranged from 0·75 to 0·90 liter/s. The magnitude of the frictional and drag forces acting on a crawfish were identified to be of the order of 0·001-0·01 N. The hard-shell crawfish escape rate from the separation unit can be approximated as a first-order process with respect to the loading density.
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