Measurement of the Apparent Density of Shred and Void Fraction in a Tobacco Column

The measurement of physical properties such as apparent density and void fraction of tobacco materials, which is so bulky, is a main theme with regard to tobacco process, quality control, cigarette combustion and smoke generation. Except Solution Impregnation Method, there was no alternative method for measuring those properties in the porous material so far. However, experimental processes of that method are so complicated as to cost much time and labor, the main solution such as mercury to apply to the method is usually very hazard. Therefore, we had developed a new method to determine them easily in our other paper by the mathematical equations derived from the Ergun equation for the purpose of it, and then already evaluated our method through applying some basic data from Muramatsu et at. (1979) with regard to our developed equations. Then, we found our method best fit to experimental one (Oh et al., 2001). In this study we tried to establish our method to conveniently determine those physical properties. Especially, we have focused on the development the easy way to measure surface area and the volume of single shred in a tobacco column. As a result of that, we found that the computer image analyzer was best fit for it. Then, we have finally determined apparent density and void fraction for our domestic tobacco shred.