Engineering properties of Ultrasonic treated african Ekki wood (Lophira Alata) Seed

Abstract

Some selected engineering properties of ultrasonic treated seeds of Lophira alata were determined in this study. The dimension of Lophira alata seeds in the three principal axes (namely, length, width, and thickness) and its geometric diameter, sphericity, porosity, bulk and true densities were determined. The crushing force of the seed was also established. The mean values obtained for the seeds of Lophira alata in the three principal axes (namely, length, width, and thickness) were 14.42, 9.31 and 9.23mm for small seed size; 15.72, 9.52 and 9.48 mm for medium seed size and 17.09, 9.23 and 9.14mm for large seed size while geometric mean and arithmetic mean diameters were 10.72 and 10.99 mm; 11.21 and 11.57 mm; 11.28 and 11.82 mm respectively for the three sizes. The sphericity was also found to have mean values of 0.74, 0.71 and 0.66 for the three sizes respectively. The unit true density has mean values of 1.22, 1.18 and 1.19 kg/m3 respectively for small, medium and large seed sizes. However, the Ultrasonic Treated Seed (UTS) has a range of 0.67 to 0.74kg/m3 while Non-Ultrasonic Treated Seed (NUTS) has a range of 0.69 to 0.71 kg/m3 for bulk density. The mean values of crushing force ranged from 0.15 to 0.3kN and 0.3 to 0.5kN both UTS and NUTS respectively. In conclusion the data derived could be useful in processing Lophira alata seeds.