ANSI/ASAE S424.

1 MAR1992 (R2012)
Method of Determining and Expressing Particle Size of Chopped Forage Materials by Screening

American Society of
Agricultural and Biological Engineers

ASABE is a professional and technical organization, of members worldwide, who are dedicated to advancement of
engineering applicable to agricultural, food, and biological systems. ASABE Standards are consensus documents
developed and adopted by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers to meet standardization
needs within the scope of the Society; principally agricultural field equipment, farmstead equipment, structures, soil
and water resource management, turf and landscape equipment, forest engineering, food and process engineering,
electric power applications, plant and animal environment, and waste management.

NOTE: ASABE Standards, Engineering Practices, and Data are informational and advisory only. Their use by anyone
engaged in industry or trade is entirely voluntary. The ASABE assumes no responsibility for results attributable to the
application of ASABE Standards, Engineering Practices, and Data. Conformity does not ensure compliance with
applicable ordinances, laws and regulations. Prospective users are responsible for protecting themselves against
liability for infringement of patents.

ASABE Standards, Engineering Practices, and Data initially approved prior to the society name change in July of 2005
are designated as "ASAE", regardless of the revision approval date. Newly developed Standards, Engineering
Practices and Data approved after July of 2005 are designated as "ASABE".

Standards designated as "ANSI" are American National Standards as are all ISO adoptions published by ASABE.
Adoption as an American National Standard requires verification by ANSI that the requirements for due process,
consensus, and other criteria for approval have been met by ASABE.

Consensus is established when, in the judgment of the ANSI Board of Standards Review, substantial agreement has
been reached by directly and materially affected interests. Substantial agreement means much more than a simple
majority, but not necessarily unanimity. Consensus requires that all views and objections be considered, and that a
concerted effort be made toward their resolution.

CAUTION NOTICE: ASABE and ANSI standards may be revised or withdrawn at any time. Additionally, procedures of
ASABE require that action be taken periodically to reaffirm, revise, or withdraw each standard.

Copyright American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. All rights reserved.

ASABE, 2950 Niles Road, St. Joseph, Ml 49085-9659, USA, phone 269-429-0300, fax 269-429-3852, hq@asabe.org
ANSI/ASAE S424.1 MAR1992 (R2012)
Revision approved September 1992; reaffirmed February 2012 as an American National Standard

Method of Determining and Expressing Particle Size of

Chopped Forage Materials by Screening

Developed by the ASAE Forage Harvesting and Utilization Committee;

approved by the ASAE Power and Machinery Division Standards
Committee; adopted by ASAE April 1986; revised editorially March 1988;
approved as an American National Standard June 1988; revised March
1992; revision approved by ANSI September 1992; reaffirmed by ASAE
December 1996; reaffirmed by ANSI March 1998; reaffirmed by ASAE
December 2001, January 2007, reaffirmed by ANSI January 2007; re-
affirmed by ASABE January 2012; reaffirmed by ANSI February 2012.
Keywords: Forage, Particle size, Sieving, Test procedure
1 Purpose and scope
1.1 The purpose of this Standard is to define a test procedure to
determine the particle size distribution of chopped forage materials and
to define a method of expressing the particle length of the material. The
determined particle size distribution can be used to evaluate forage
harvesting machine and handling equipment variables and to define
forage physical length in animal feeding trials.
1.2 This Standard shall be used to determine the particle size of
chopped forage materials where the reduction process yields particles
such as that material produced by shear-bar type forage harvesters. It is
not intended for use on material produced by flail-type harvesters where
substantial fractions of the material may be extremely long.
1.3 This Standard is intended for use in the field as well as in the
laboratory. It is intended to separate chopped forage samples without
drying them first.
2 Test equipment
2.1 For particle measuring purposes, a set of square-hole screens
having widths of 406 mm (16.0 in.) lengths of 565 mm (22.25 in.) and
specifications shown in Table 1 shall be used. The screens shall be
supported in frames with depths of 63.5 mm (2.50 in.) and arranged
horizontally in a stack such that the screen with the largest opening size
is at the top. Those with smaller openings shall be arranged with
progressively smaller hole sizes below each other. If screens with
different size openings from those listed in Table 1 are used, the actual
dimensions for the openings shall be used in the data analysis and shall
be reported. Pertinent screening dimensions should be in geometric
progression with the smallest selected to be appropriate to the particle
size spectrum of the sample.
2.2 A suitable screen shaker is required. The shaker shall oscillate the
screen stack in a horizontal plane. The center of one end of the screen
stack shall oscillate in a straight horizontal line on a slider block. The
opposite end of the screen stack shall be supported on horizontal crank
arms, the crank end centers of which are located 765.2 mm (30.12 in.)
from the center of the slider block pivot located on the other end of the
screen stack. The centers of the arms shall travel in a horizontal circle
with a diameter of 117 mm (4.62 in.) (see Figs. 1 and 2).
NOTE: Information on plans for constructing such a screen shaker
may be obtained from the American Society of Agricultural Engineers.
2.3 The screen shaker shall drive the screen stack at a frequency of
2.4 0.08 Hz(1445/cycles/min).
2.4 The shaker should be operated with the screens level.
2.5 A weighing balance having an accuracy of at least 0.5 g shall be
used for weighing the fractions.
3 Method of screening
3.1 Uncompressed samples of 9 to 10 L of forage should be used.
Samples of 2 to 3 L of material may be used if extra care is taken to
recover the material from each screen. For field work, the larger samples
are usually preferred. The sample volume size should be reported with
the data.
3.2 Place the sample on the top of the sample feeder (near the closed
end) above the top screen of the screen set and operate the shaker for
120 s.
3.3 The tapered louvers on the feeder should be preset to feed the
sample to the top screen in 20 to 30 s. The louvers may be inclined to
change the feeding time. This adjustment is made using successive trials
with practice samples similar to the crop material to be evaluated for
particle size distribution.
3.4 Material on each screen and bottom pan shall be weighed and
recorded.
3.5 If the amount retained on the top screen exceeds 1% of the total
sample mass, representative subsamples should be obtained from this
screen and measured manually. The average length may then be used
in the data analysis as geometric mean length, X 1 .

Table 1 Dimensions of square-hole screens for testing purposes

Nominal Square Screen

size opening hole diagonal thickness Open
Screen area
no. mm in. mm in. mm in. %

1 19.0 0.75 26.9 1.06 12.7 0.50 45

2 12.7 0.50 18.0 0.71 9.6 0.38 33
3 6.3 0.25 8.98 0.35 4.8 0.19 33
4 3.96 0.156 5.61 0.22 3.1 0.12 39
5* 1.17 0.046 1.65 0.065 0.64 0.025 41.5
Pan

*14 mesh woven wire cloth with 0.64 mm (0.025 in.) diameter wires. All others are Figure 1 Top view of forage particle separator
aluminum sheets or plates. showing screen motion land and feeder position

ANSI/ASAE S424.1 MAR1992 (R2012) Copyright American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers 1
 X i geometric mean length of particles on i th screen[ X i
X i 1 ] 1/2
Mi mass on i th screen (actual mass at the conditions of
screening
or percent of total; decimal or percent form)
S gm standard deviation
NOTE: X i is measured manually as described in paragraph 3.5. If it is
less than 1% of the total, it is treated as zero.
4.2.3 Material passing through screen No. 5 and collected in the pan
shall be considered to have a geometric mean length of 0.82 mm (0.0325
in.). This becomes X 6 in equations [1] and [2].
4.2.4 An example of how the equations may be used to find geometric
mean particle length and standard deviation for a sample data set
follows:
Percent mass distribution of a chopped alfalfa sample

Screen Percent total Cumulative

Screen diagonal, mass on undersize,
Figure 2 Schematic diagram of forage particle separator no. mm screens, % %

1 26.9 3.8 96.2

2 18.0 8.1 88.1
3.6 The screening process should be repeated to produce 3 sets of data. 3 8.98 25.1 63.0
These data sets may be averaged or analyzed separately with the 4 5.61 26.9 36.1
procedure specified in the report. 5 1.65 34.2 1.9
3.7 A representative sample of the unscreened material shall be used for Pan 1.9
moisture content determination. Moisture content (wet basis) shall be 100.0
reported along with particle size data.
3.8 Screen openings must be kept free of forage particles so that The average measured length of the particles on the top screen (No. 1)
effective screening can be accomplished. A stiff bristle cleaning brush, or
was 48 mm. This becomes X 1 in equations [1] and [2]. Equation [3] and
compressed air, is useful for cleaning screens which have become
the above information are used to obtain the following mean lengths for
clogged with forage particles. Screens may need to be cleaned
particles in each fraction:
periodically to remove plant residue materials. Plant residues may be
removed by washing with water containing a detergent. Screens and the X 1 48
particle separator must be air dried before use. X 2 (18.0 26.9) 1/222.0
3.9 If static electricity becomes a problem when separating dry forage X 3 (8.98 18.0) 1/212.7
materials, liquid laundry static control may lightly be sprayed onto the X 4 (5.61 8.98) 1/27.10
sample before separating.
X 5 (1.65 5.61) 1/23.04
3.10 If separation problems occur due to high crop moisture levels, X 0.82
6
samples can be dried in a low temperature oven (65 C) to a target
moisture of approximately 50% moisture wet basis before separating. Equations [1] and [2] are used to obtain

4 Data analysis
4.1 Analysis of mass distribution of all chopped forage materials is
based on the assumption that these distributions are logarithmic normally
distributed.
4.2 Calculation of particle size
4.2.1 The size of particles shall be reported in terms of geometric mean
length, X gm , and standard deviation, S gm , by mass.
4.2.2 Calculated values are obtained as follows:
M i log x i
X gm log1 (1)
Mi

S gm log1 M i log X i log X gm 2

Mi
1/2
(2)

where
Xi diagonal of screen openings of the i th screen
X ( i 1 ) diagonal of screen openings in next larger than
the i th screen (just above in a set)
X gm geometric mean length
Figure 3 Cumulative percent undersized particles versus screen diagonal
opening size for alfalfa for graphic determination of mean length
and standard deviation

ANSI/ASAE S424.1 MAR1992 (R2012) Copyright American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers 2
 X gm log1 0.038 log 48 0.081 log 22 0.251 log 12.7 0.269 log 7.1 0.342 log 3.04 0.019 log 0.82
0.0380.0810.2510.2690.3420.019
6.95 mm

2 2
48 22 12.7 2 7.1 2 3.04 2
0.82 2 1/2
0.038 log 0.081 log 0.251 log 0.269 log 0.342 log 0.019 log
6.95 6.95 6.95 6.95 6.95 6.95
S gm log1
0.0380.0810.2510.2690.3420.019
2.26

4.2.5 Graphical solutions for geometric mean length and standard References
deviation may be obtained by plotting the results on logarithmic normal
probability graph paper. Fig. 3 shows an example of a plot of the data 1. Finner, M. F., J. E. Hardzinski and L. L. Pagel, 1978. Evaluating particle length
from paragraph 4.2.4 of chopped forages. ASAE Paper No. 78-1047. St. Joseph. MI: ASAE.
where 2. Stockham, J. D. and E. G. Fochtman. 1977. Particle size analysis. Ann Arbor
Science Pub., Inc.
X gm X 50 particle length at 50% probability
S gm X 84 / X 50 standard deviation
X 84 particle length at 84% cumulative probability

ANSI/ASAE S424.1 MAR1992 (R2012) Copyright American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers 3