Experimental study of electrical properties of beetroots in drying processes with infrared radiation

The purpose of the study was the development of infrared radiation energy (IRE) effective modes on the basis of electrophysical properties (EPP) of root crops of beet for the purpose of improvement of quality indicators of the studied product. The technique of carrying out pilot studies by definition of EPP of beet on the basis of four-probe method (FPM) of determination of specific resistance with the use of experimental installation was developed for heat treatment of "IL-3M". Besides, the devel-opment of algorithm by definition of the effective modes of infrared power supply (IPS) and the choice of the most optimum IRR on the obtained experimental data was carried out. During the anal-ysis of methods by definition of EPP of the studied root crop it was established that the most suitable was FPM of measurement of specific resistance. Advantages of this method of measurement were determined. The schematic electric circuit consist-ing of the transformer, the support with probe con-tacts and the measuring device was developed for application of the method. Taking into account the change of mass of a hinge plate of the crushed beet root crops, the calculation of change of humid-ity in the course of thermal treatment was made. The obtained data were analyzed; dependences of humidity on resistance were constructed. On the basis of the obtained data the choice of IRE effec-tive mode when using a certain recurrence in the set time interval was made.