LABORATORY TESTING OF A GRAVITY COLUMN FOR CLEANING AND CALIBRATING OF SOYBEAN SEEDS

Abstract

With the increase in the sown areas of soybeans, the load on grain cleaning machines also increases, where the sieve traditionally remains the main part for cleaning. The biggest drawback of the sieve is its clogging with impurities and halves of soybean seeds. There is impurity of crushed soy (soy halves) in the final product. To solve this issue, it is necessary to develop a device with high quality indicators of the final product (absence of crushed soy) and low energy consumption. (Research purpose) The research purpose is conducting laboratory studies of a gravity plant for high efficient separation and calibration of soybean seeds. (Materials and methods) The article presents the design and technological schemes of the gravity cleaning machine. The prototype of the cleaning machine can perform both cleaning and calibration of soybean seeds. Authors tested the developed plant for cleaning and calibration of soybean seeds by gravity. (Results and discussion) With an increase in the amount of material released into the waste fraction, the purity of seeds in the seed fraction increases. Seed losses increase to 19.15 percent with an increase in the mass of the waste fraction, but they differ sharply in quality from seeds in the purified material; the mass of 1000 pieces of seeds was 1.4-2.6 times lower. When 4.26 percent of the material was put into the waste, the mass of 1000 pieces of seeds in the waste was 102.03 grams, and in the purified material of 224.89 grams; during calibration, the purity of each fraction of the corresponding size was at least 98.96 percent. (Conclusions) The plant with a capacity of up to 3,619 tons per hour allows separating and calibrating soybean seeds of the original and elite seeds category GOST R 52325-2005. At the same time seed losses are of 0.46-1.38 percent, but these are defective seeds with a mass of 1000 pieces more than twice the mass of 1000 pieces of seeds in the purified material.