Juice extraction from chopped sweet sorghum is an example of flow through porous media. Darcy's law is often used to express this type of phenomenon. However, using Darcy's law to construct a mathematical model to predict juice extraction from chopped sweet sorghum is difficult, because the volume of the porous media changes during the pressing operations. A mathematical model was developed from fundamental analysis to predict the juice extraction ratio of chopped sweet sorghum, and experiments were conducted to verify the model. An experimental piston-cylinder assembly was developed to conduct the validation experiments. The parameters in the developed model were estimated by using non-linear regression analysis from the experimental data. Plots of the mathematical model agreed well with experimental data. R^2(coefficient of determination) values for all the regressions studied were higher than 0.99. Results showed that the juice extraction ratio of chopped sweet sorghum approached an asymptote with a maximum value that depended on the physical form of the sample. The model could help in understanding the mechanics of juice extraction from chopped sweet sorghum.
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