INFLUENCE OF PULSE ELECTRIC FIELD ON OIL-BEARING MATERIAL RHEOLOGY

Treatment with pulse electric field is a promising method of preliminary preparation of oil-bearing material before further treatment. Experimental data was obtained in Kuban State Technological University («Food and Chemical Technologies Research Center») (Krasnodar). The author studied oil-bearing material rheological properties and assessed the influence of preliminary treatment with pulse electric field. Using mathematical tools and an experiment the author found out that plastic viscosity of pulp corresponds to oil viscosity which confirms the assumption about Bingham rheology made in the paper. Experimental works have shown that there is structure formation in the material that enters conveyor auger feeder. The author determined that there is an effect after treatment with pulse electric field as the structure of the material changed and critical shear stress decreased from 24.36 to 22.89 Pa for the samples which were treated with field having field intensity E = 8 kV/cm and number of pulses n = 300 during three seconds. Critical shear stress decrease due to the treatment with pulse electric field allows to use less energy for oil-bearing material transportation and crushing in case of pressing process. That factor is a positive complement to the existing effect of oil yield increase after preliminary preparation. The obtained parameters of the engineering model make it possible to forecast rheology of viscoplastic flow in wide range of shear strain rates in conveyor auger feeder as well as during treatment with pulse electric field.