Soybean Impacts: Experiments and Dynamic Simulations

The coefficient of restitution of soybeans impacting aluminum, glass, and acrylic was measured for dropheights of 15.1 cm, 29.2 cm, and 51.1 cm and at moisture contents of 10.7% and 15.5% (db). Statistically significantchanges 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 coefficient of restitution from 0.69 to 0.59, adecrease of approximately 14%. Over the range of impact velocities tested (1.7 to 3.2 m/s produced by drops from heightsfrom 15.1 cm to 51.1 cm) the coefficient of restitution was relatively insensitive to velocity, decreasing by less than 5%from 0.65 to 0.62. The measured values of coefficient of restitution were used as inputs to algorithms describing thebehavior of a single bouncing soybean. The algorithm predicted reasonable results when compared to the observedbehavior of dropped soybeans.