Electrical characteristics and mechanical behaviour of powders of the animal feeding industry

GUILLERMO ARTANA; GERARD TOUCHARD; F PUTIER

JOURNAL OF ELECTROSTATICS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 1999 vol. 47 p. 3 - 12

0304-3886

This article explains the laboratory and industrial tests we have undertaken with powders of the farm-produce industry. In the laboratory environment we have used three devices in order to measure different electrical properties of powders: the resistivity, the charge accumulation in a dielectric absorption test and the wall current appearing in a pneumatic conveyor because of the flow electrification phenomena. Thirty different products used in animal feeding have been tested and the results compared to other physical parameters. In an industrial environment experiments of charging process in industrial equipment used for mixing and pneumatic conveying have been made with five different products. We have correlated the results obtained in the industrial and laboratory environment. It is first clear that the prediction made with the laboratory measurement are in good agreement with those made in factory on a large scale device. More, interesting correlations have been pointed out between the mixing capability of products and the results obtained from the flow electrification tests. Thus, our results seems to indicate that from the electrical characteristics of the product it could be possible to make predictions about the mixing quality of products in industry prior to other analysis.