SOYBEAN IMPACTS - EXPERIMENTS AND DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS

The coefficient of restitution of soybeans impacting aluminum, glass, and acrylic was measured for drop heights of 15.1 cm, 29.2 cm, and 51. 1 cm and at moisture contents of 10.7% and 15.5% (db). Statistically s ignificant changes in the coefficient of restitution were produced by changes in material surface, drop height and moisture content. Changes in moisture content from 10.7% to 15.5% (db) reduced the average coef ficient of restitution from 0.69 to 0.59, a decrease of approximately 14%. Over the range of impact velocities tested (1.7 to 3.2 m/s produc ed by drops from heights from 15.1 cm to 51.1 cm) the coefficient of r estitution was relatively insensitive to velocity, decreasing by less than 5% from 0.65 to 0.62. The measured values of coefficient of resti tution were used as inputs to algorithms describing the behavior of a single bouncing soybean. The algorithm predicted reasonable results wh en compared to the observed behavior of dropped soybeans.