Determination of grain humidity by humid air pressure

Abstract

The article is devoted to the control of the level of grain moisture during storage, transportation and processing. The topicality is due to the need for rapid control of humidity, as one of the ways to improve quality, productivity and reduce costs, including energy, in the preparation, production, processing, transportation and storage of grain and processed products – cereals, feed, pasta, bread. The paper considers the risks of grain moisture on its quality, the known methods of measuring grain moisture. It describes their advantages and disadvantages. It is shown that by improving the known methods it is possible to increase the measurement of accuracy and sensitivity. The dependence of humid air pressure on grain moisture is investigated in the work. It is shown that the pressure of moist air depends only on the amount of water per unit volume of grain and does not depend on the specific gravity of the grain. Empirical formulas and methods of theoretical calculation of grain moisture on the change of air pressure in the chamber are given. The results of experimental measurements are presented, which confirm the validity of theoretical calculations. Based on the obtained theoretical results, an engineering method for calculating the mass of water containing a grain sample has been developed. It can be used to design real devices. A model structure for estimating the influence of the scatter of the determining parameters on the error of water mass measurement is proposed and the simulation results obtained using the Micro-Cap medium are presented. The tasks are set for further research.

Keywords

• grain moisture
• moisture meter
• moisture mass pressure
• distillation method
• measurement error