Physical and mechanical properties of milk thistle seeds

Main Article Content

A.N. Lorestani
R. Gholami
M. Zareie

Keywords

milk thistle, physical and mechanical properties

Abstract

Physical and mechanical properties of medicinal plants and agricultural products are important for the design of harvesting and processing equipment. In this paper, the physical and mechanical properties of milk thistle were investigated. The physical properties that were measured included dimensions (big, medium and small diameters), aspect ratio, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic means diameter, projected area, surface area, sphericity, moisture, density and porosity. Their averages were found to be 6.52 mm, 3.13 mm, 1.81 mm, 48.15%, 3.33 mm, 3.82 mm, 13.65 mm2, 88.04 mm2, 51%, 6.87%, 0.77 g/cm3 and 87.5%, respectively. Mechanical properties such as modulus of elasticity, maximum force that the fruit can support, work associated with this force, deformation under compression loading and hardness were investigated and their average values were found to be 0.49 GPa, 136.41 N, 64.39 N.mm, 0.77 mm and 215.96 N/mm, respectively. The coefficient of static friction of samples was measured on three surfaces (glass, galvanised metal and wood), and their average vales were found to be 0.38, 0.37, 0.37, respectively.

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References

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