Determination of engineering properties of selected animal feed and fodder materials

Abstract

The traditional ways of handling feed and fodder in a commercial dairy farm are labour intensive, tiresome and also leads to huge expenses as labour charges. Therefore, there is a need of mechanised feed and fodder distribution unit in order to reduce the human drudgery and other expenses. Thus, an attempt was made to determine the engineering properties (moisture content, bulk density, angle of repose and coefficient of internal friction) of feed which would be affecting the design of a mechanised feed and fodder unit. Three feed materials viz., oat green, wheat straw and concentrate mixture were selected for study. The angle of repose varied from 24.78±0.34 to 37.79±0.76°,the coefficient of friction from 0.187±0.024 to 2.628±1.612depending on the moisture content and the bulk density of the selected materials. The coefficient of external friction was determined for different fabrication materials including wooden/ply board, galvanized iron, aluminium, mild steel and stainless steel and the maximum coefficient of external friction was offered to the feed materials by ply board followed by mild steel.