This lab has been established to conduct laboratory studies in soil bin related to tillage and traction.
This lab has been established to conduct various laboratory studies on seeding equipment and mechanism related to seeding machinery. The lab has setup for study of flow of seed and fertilizer materials. It is also equipped with seed germination, seed moisture, and infra-red soil moisture meter in addition to moisture ovens for determination of moisture content of grains, soil and plant materials.
Plant protection laboratory has testing facility for
hydraulic sprayer nozzles such as standard patternator, circular
patternator,
nozzle wear rig, spectrophotometer etc. Lab also
consists of various types of plant protection appliances used in India and abroad.
Animal Energy Laboratory has been developed for performance testing of animal -machine system for crop production, post harvest and rural transport operations. The laboratory has animal loading car, animal treadmill, LIX micrologger and associated instrumentation system for measurement of engineering and physiological parameters for animal work performance in terms of energy output and fatigue. This helps in simulated laboratory and field studies on draught ability, work-rest cycles and fatigue of draught animals.
This
laboratory provide the facilities to study the relationship between a person and
his working environment, generation of ergonomic data base on Indian
agricultural workers and to study various tools and equipments used for
different operations in agriculture. This laboratory has various anthropometric
and bio-mechanics equipment need for collection of data on bodydimension and
muscular strength for use in design of equipment; computerized facilities to
measure energy expenditure by measuring
oxygen consumption, and cardio-vascular stress through measurement of heart rate
of the worker under laboratory as well as field conditions. Facilities are also
available to carry out studies on various environmental stress agents i.e.
vibration, noise, dust and temperature affecting human performance at the work
place.
This lab is equipped with modern material testing equipments.
The laboratory has been developed to conduct studies on cleaning, grading and milling (Size reduction) of farm produce and food raw materials. The laboratory has rice mill set up (Satake make), Japan grading and separation equipment and laboratory scale size reduction units. The equipment for cleaning, grading and milling developed at CIAE are also housed in this lab.
Food Engineering Properties and Drying
This lab consists of facilities for determination of raw material and product properties, such as dimension, colour and rheological properties. Main instruments available in this lab are texture analyzer colour meter, hardness tester and Instron machine.
This lab consists of equipment like oil seed decorticators, oilseed cleaner/grader etc for oil seed processing.
Food packaging, handling and storage
This lab is developed to conduct studies on packaging, handling and storage of raw materials and food products. The important equipment available include vacuum packaging machine, puncture resistance tester, environmental test chamber etc.
Bio-Chemistry and Microbiology
The laboratory has the facility for analysis of food raw materials and food products for their nutritional quality such as protein, carbohydrate, fat etc. The microbiological laboratory is being developed to take care of studies on microbiological aspects of food products and raw materials.
Chemical Analysis and Quality Control
This laboratory has been developed to evaluate and establish complete nutritional and anti-nutritional profile of soybean, soybased food products as well as other food/feed products. It has sophisticated and precise equipments like high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC), Gas Chromatograph (GC). Atomic Absorption, NIR, UV-VIS spectrophoto-meters, Freeze dryer and other routine equipments. It can cater to the quantitative analysis of food samples in respect of their protein, fat, sugar, vitamin, mineral, ash, enzymes, anti-nutritional contents and other parameters.
Food Processing and Product Development
This laboratory facilitates preparation and conditioning of raw materials for product developments and its evaluation. It has facilities for cleaning, grading, drying/conditioning, milling, physico-chemical characterization and sensory evaluation. Equipment like pressure cooker, food processor, autoclaves, centrifuge, balance ans some kitchen gadgets are available.
Baking laboratory facilitates determination of various flour properties and dough rheology like mixing time, peak value, water absorption, extensibility, moisture content, viscosity, particle size, valorimeter reading etc. using farinograph, extensiograph, falling number, viscometer, pycnometer, moisture meters and other related equipment. Various processing parameters such as baking temperature and time can be controlled for obtaining a good quality product. Baking properties like volume change, spread ratio of the products can be determined. Baking laboratory has facilities for preparation of soyfortified biscuits, bread, and cake and determination of their sensory properties like bread crust, crumb grain, flavour, taste, colour, appearance and overall acceptability.
The fermentation technology laboratory can undertake quality evaluation of various fermented products. The lab also has facility for microbial content analysis of soybean and other food to assess their safe use. It has equipment like autoclave, BOD incubator, Laminar flow, oven and colony counter. Microbial culture facility is also available.
Pilot plant facility for extrusion expelling of soybean to produce medium fat soyflour and chemical free and physically refined oil, production of soymilk and soypaneer, fullfat soyflour andsoyfortified biscuits has been made. These are tools for training entrepreneurs on manufacture of a particular product and handling of machines. It also serves as a production unit for market search for the product and its refinement besides being a demonstration unit.
The Mechanical Power lab is equipped with the facilities such as portable hydraulic dynamometer to measure the power & torque of tractors in the lab as well as in the field. Hydraulic dynamometer is available for engine testing. The sound and vibration measuring facilities with most modern equipment are available along with facilities to measure whole body vibration. The lab is also having facilities for measuring torque, draft, moisture content, temperature, pressure etc.
A PLC based automated testing set-ups for pumps and drippers have been developed at CIAE in Irrigation and Drainage Engineering Division. Pump testing set-up has been designed to study the performance characteristics of centrifugal pumpsets of power capacity ranging from 2 to 10 hp. Suction pressure, delivery pressure, discharge and torque between motor and pump are measured by using 4-20 mA DC signal based transmitters in the system. An automated dripper-testing set-up includes measurement of water quality parameters (pH, Ec and Temp.). Differential pressure across the filter, discharge measurement and inlet pressure at the testing time. All these parameters except discharge are measured with sensor cum transmitters with 4-20 mA DC Signal. Discharge is measured by using tipping buckets and data is transferred to PLC in the form of digital signals. This is designed for 50-300 kPa pressures with dripper of 2-10 lph to meet the BIS requirement. Both systems are operated by using Supervisory control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) an MMI package of Rsview –32. SCADA acquires data from PLC into computer in the report from. It has got features of creating reports, animated system layouts with control switches and controls for changing the pressure head in the testing.
