Variações na forma do feijão guandu devido a secagem

Abstract

The objective of the present work was to evaluate the variations in the shape of pigeon peas throughout the drying process. Pigeon pea grains harvested and threshed manually with initial moisture content of 1,34 (b.s) were used. These grains were dried in a forced air oven at 40 °C. The reduction of moisture content during drying was indirectly monitored through the loss of mass, until the final average moisture content of 0,14 (b.s). During drying, the following physical properties were determined: characteristic dimensions, volume, real density, surface to-volume ratio, surface area, sphericity, circularity, and geometric diameter. According to the results, it was concluded that the reduction of the moisture content influenced significantly the shape factors of the analyzed pigeon pea grains. Throughout drying, there was a reduction of the main characteristic dimensions, surface area, and geometric diameter. It was also observed an increase in the surface-to-volume ratio, in the sphericity, and in the circularity to the projection on the bigger and average dimensions.