Study of compression characteristic of cassava influenced by temperature basing on forming apparatus

Abstract. Within the multiple processing procedures in the pellet feed production, it is no doubt that pelleting production is one of the most decisive links that could influence the final quality of the feed production significantly. In the process of compressing forming of pellet, the form of mash material is affected by the environmental temperature with the activity of moisture and heat; gap between different particles is decreased dramatically while new links between them are formulated; the chemical ingredients of particle are changed by hand of thermal condition while starch is gelatinized and final forming is completed by mechanical extrusion action. Meantime, loads of research paper have evidenced that different environmental temperatures paid important contribution in forming properties of final pellet such as the applying occasion of low-temperature pelleting, while these research paper in this field mainly focus on qualitative study. As a widely planted crop in many regions of South China, cassava is a fantastic resource of energy feed material which almost is the crop that could generate the highest carbohydrates as well as thermal energy among others in same condition. However with all these properties bring with considerable economical value, there still are a lot of room of research development in the field of the cassava application study as feed material. In this article, grounded mash cassava samples are subjects for tests based on a self-designed compression forming apparatus. With other experiment factors are fixed which included moisture content of samples, particle size, apparatus structure and compression load as processing parameters, the main focus factor environmental temperatures are set to levels such as 60℃, 70℃, 75℃, 80℃, 85℃, 90℃; after conditioning process, the samples are conducted the compression forming trails with the help of electronic hydraulic universal testing machine, to simulate the actual production of pelleting procedure. By the help of the machine, the data of stress and its correspond strain, run time are collected; meantime some critical quality indexes of feed including powder content ratio, pellet hardness and pellet density are measured. According to the experiment results, the shape, changing tendency and peak point of mash cassava compression curve is analyzed with the influence law by the different environment temperatures. And the affected range of those quality indexes of cassava forming particles for pellet feed by surrounding thermal condition as well as significance level are studied. On the other hand, in view of divide study theory, the curve of compression forming of mash cassava is discovered by separated parts, which contain friable parts, transition parts, compression parts and elapse parts thus make the targeted discussion of compression properties towards particular parts possible. The study results of this research could provide theory reference for cassava application in pellet feed forming processing as a new type of raw material as well as fundamental data of cassava in compression forming stage. Thus, the practitioners of feed industry could utilize the cassava for feed to better fulfill the purpose of production and quality control of pellet feed with high efficiency and low consumption.