A Report: Committee on Classification of

Particle Size in Feedstuffs

A procedure entitled, Proposed Method for
Determining and Expressing Fineness of Feed U.S. a Tyler
Materials by Sieving has been given careful con- Sieve Sieve Opening
sideration and approval by the Board of Direc- (No.) (~)
tors of the American Dairy Science Association.
4 4 4,760
Publication of the procedure in the JOUR~rAL OF
6 6 3,360
DAIRY SCIENCE was approved at the annual
8 8 2,380
meeting of the Board of Directors, June, 1969. 12 10 1,680
An ad hoc intersociety committee has been
16 14 1,190
formed to encourage approval of this procedure
20 20 840
among related societies.
30 28 590
The proposed procedure is limited in use
40 35 420
to feed particles of spherical and cubical shape,
50 48 297
such as concentrates. Hopefully, additional
70 65 210
methods will be developed to classify elongated
100 100 149
particles such as flaked grains and ground rough-
140 150 105
ages.--W. L. Ensor, H. H. Olson, and V. F.
200 200 74
Colenbrander, Chairman. 270 270 53
Pan
Proposed Method of Determining
and Expressing Fineness of Feed !Katerials " United States Bureau of Standards.
by Sieving
PURPOSE 2) A suitable sieve shaker, such as a Ro-tap.®
3) A balance having an accuracy of at least
The purpose of this standard is to define a ± one-tenth gram.
test procedure to determine the fineness of feed 4) Sieve agitators such as leather rings, a
ingredients and a method of expressing the par- few kernels of corn, or small rubber bails
ticle size of the material. may be required to break up agghmmrates
on finer sieves, usually those smaller than
SCOPE 50-mesh.
This standard shall be used to determine the 5) A dispersion agent I should be available
fineness of feed ingredients where the reduction to facilitate sieving of high fat or simi-
process yields particles essentially spherical or lar materals.
cubical. It is not adequate to define the particle 6) A stiff-bristle sieve cleaning brush, or com-
size of materials such as steamed and rolled pressed air, is useful for cleaning sieves
grains, which are a flaked product, or products clogged with feed particles. Sieves must
such as chopped hay, where a substantial frac- be cleaned of oil at periodic intervals.
tion consists of elongated particles. This may be done by washing with a deter-
gent and water and drying. Ttmy should
TEST EQUIPMENT be washed whenever plugginff of the sieves
1) A set of wire-mesh sieves having a diam- indicates there are insufficient openings to
eter of eight inches shall be used. (With provide normal sieving.
the most common shaking equipment,
sieves having a height of one inch are METHOD OF SIEVING
most suitable to avoid the necessity of re- ]) Sample size. A sample of 100 g should
sieving the finer fraction.) The standard be used, although smaller samples may be
set of sieves shall consist of the following used if extra care is taken to recover all
sizes : material from the sieves.
2 ) The sample is placed on the top sieve of
1 Dispersion agents include: Cab-O-Sil MS avail- the set of sieves and shaken until the
able from the Cabot Corp., Boston; Ziolex 23A weight of material, on the sieve with the
and Zeofree 80 available from the J. M. Huber smallest openings which contains any ma-
Corp., New York ; and Flo-Gard available from the terial, reaches equilibrium. Equilibrium
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., St. Louis. shall be determined by inspecting and
689
690 JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE

weighing at five-nfinute intervals after = [di X di+l] 1/2

an original sieving time of ten minuses. Sg~ = geometric standard deviation
I f the weight on the smallest sieve con- W t = weight fraction on i th sieve
taining any material changes by 0.2 g or (Material passing the 270-
less during a five-minute period the siev- mesh sieve shall be considered
ing shall be considered complete at the to have a mean diameter of
onset of the previous period. 44 /z.)
3) Material on all sieves shall be weighed c) Graphical solutions for geometric mean
and recorded. diameter and log-normal geometric
4) I f a dispersing agent is required, it should standard deviation may be obtained by
be added at a level of 0.5% and its effect plotting results on logarithmic proba-
on particle size need not be recorded. bility graph paper. Figure 1 shows an
5) If 20% or m o r e o f the material by weight example where
passes the smallest sieve, the fine material dgw ----dso ----particle diameter at 50%
shall be subjected to a nonsieving p a r - probability and
ticle size analysis, such as microscopic ds4 dso
Sgw -- -- particle size at 84%
measurement oz" sedimentation testing, and
dso d16
such analysis shall be reported separately. probability/dg w = dgw/particle diam-
eter at 16% probability. Or,
DATA ANALYSIS
dgw = 350 tL
Analyses of weight distribution data of all and
ground feeds and feed ingredients are based 640 350
on the assumption that these distributions are Sgw -- -- -- 1.83.
logarithmically normally distributed. 350 191
1) Calculation of particle size.
a) The size of particles shall be reported

99 /
99.9
in terms of geometric mean diameter
and geometric standard deviation by
weight.
b) Calculated values are obtained as fol- 95
lows : ~90
¢-
log d|) ..,80
d,.,v = log 1 / . x ( w i r-
" XW
l_ 50
S g w : log_l I ~ V , (l()~--~W ] ° g d g w ) 2 1 I / 2
> 2o

/ i
0 • | I

Where : -5 10
E 5
d i = diameter of screen openings of 0
the i TM sieve 1
dl4 = diameter of screen next larger
than i th screen (just above in 0.1 /i|| l a ! J I llll I i i I i I

a set) 50
100 500 1000 5000
Particle size,d; microns
dgw ~ geometric mean diameter
d i = geometric diameter of parti- Lognormol distribution for sorghum
cles on i n~ sieve grain ground .through 1/8" screen.

JOURNAl, OF D A I R Y SCIENCE VOL. 53, NO. 5