MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF WHEAT GRAINS UNDER COMPRESSION

The mechanical characteristics study about agricultural products is crucial so the equipment can be developed in order to achieve maximum efficiency without compromising the final quality of the product. When suffering mechanical stresses that exceed their power of resistance, the grain may have cracks and breaks increasing their deterioration susceptibility during the storage. The objective was verify the influence of moisture content in the values of maximum compression force values for pre-fixed deformations and determine the proportional deformity modulus of wheat grain subjected to compression under the speed of 0.0001 m s(-1). It was used wheat grains of variety "Brilhante", developed from BR24, with 0.14 to 0.26 dry basis (decimal b.s.) moisture content and were uniaxially compressed between two parallel plates. It was concluded that the compression force decreased with a moisture content increase. The proportional deformity modulus increases with the reduction of moisture content and with the deformation of the product, presenting values for the studied moisture content, between 8.9 x 10(7) and 51.2 x 10(7) Pa.