Model of cotton bale weight changes related to bagging.

摘要

Traditionally, bagging used for cotton bales has been permeable to moisture, but more recently relatively impermeable material has been adopted by the industry. This impermeable bagging has significantly affected the moisture changes that occur during storage. In many cases holes have been punched in the bagging in an effort to increase the permeability. To better understand the effect of different bagging materials on bale weight changes, Universal Density cotton bales were formed with relatively dry lint and covered with different types of bale bagging materials. The bales were stored in a humid environment and weighed periodically for between 63 days, for high permeability bagging, to 155 days, for low permeability bagging. The bale coverings studied included coated woven polypropylene with micro-perf holes, linear low density polyethylene film with different hole patterns, woven cotton, woven burlap, and no bale bagging. The bale weights were modeled temporally using a nonlinear exponential model. Different bales stored in the same bagging type changed weight consistently. A mathematical model was developed for polyethylene bagging that accurately related the rate of bale weight change with the percentage of bag surface removed as holes. The rate of bale weight change obtained from the regression was used to calculate a half-time to equilibrium, in days, for each bagging type. This weight change half-time will simplify communication of the effect bale bagging has on cotton bale weight change during storage.