Physical and engineering properties of chickpea (Cicer arietnum L.) for planter design

The design of a chickpea planter and its optimum performance requires physical and engineering properties of the grain varying with cultivars. Such properties include size, shape, mass, density, static friction coefficient, and repose angle etc. The cultivars viz. JG 16, HC 5, KWR 108, IPC 4-1, IPC 5-62, DCP 92-3, IPC 4-98 and JG 14 were investigated at 11.0±1.0 per cent moisture content using standard methodology. The grain size was presented in terms of major, intermediate, minor, and geometric mean diameters as 8.49-9.78, 5.91-7.23, 5.88-6.94, and 6.68-7.89 mm, respectively. The shape of the grain was presented in terms of sphericity which ranged from 0.78-0.81. The thousand seed mass, bulk density, and true density were 198-338 g, 830-880 kg m-3, and 1310-1350 kg m-3, respectively. The static friction coefficient was the least against aluminium followed by galvanised iron and mild steel surfaces with respective ranges of 0.37-0.40, 0.41-0.45, and 0.52-0.56. The angle of repose ranged from 26.4-27.7 degrees. There was a significant varietal difference in different physical and engineering properties of chickpeas except true density and angle of repose, where the difference was non-significant.