Deformation and mechanical analyses of silo foil tube

This research represents one piece of the modern storage and conservation technology, where the fermentation and the long-life conservation of the product have been realized through filling it into plastic tubes. The previously made investigations in the literature are basically dealing with the technical applicability of various machinery and facilities; therefore, this research focused on the conservation technology and the geometric and mechanic analyses of filled foil tubes.

The mechanical and deformation investigations of the foil tubes filled with winter barley were carried out in our laboratory as well as on the field. The most important static features of the foil samples were determined in our laboratory and all other properties were field-tested to promote our further deformation calculations. The change in the cross-section of a foil tube was analysed through an elliptic line fitted on the measurement points.

The radius of the osculating circle was calculated at discrete points in time; furthermore, the cross-strain of a given foil was measured, too, which helped us to determine the specific strain and stress values close to the above measurement points. After the radii of the osculating circles fitted on some chosen measurement points were determined, the filling load under the foil shell could have been calculated. The partial rheological analysis of the filled foil tubes at this point seemed to be the most effective.