Moisture Gain and Resilient Forces of Cotton Bales During Equilibration
ABSTRACT STORAGE of bales of lint cotton in environ-ments with higher relative humidity than that asso-ciated with their moisture content causes the bales to gain moisture until they equilibrate with the environ-ment. The rate of moisture gain is significantly influ-enced by the density of the cotton bale. Modified flat bales have a lower density than compress universal densi-ty bales and they gain moisture more rapidly. For modified flat bales, the rate of moisture gain was in-fluenced only slightly by the type of bale covering with the exception of polyethylene. For compress universal density bales, the rate of moisture gain was influenced significantly by the type of bale covering. The rates of moisture gain for polypropylene and burlap were higher than that for polypropylene laminated with polyethylene film on the two rounded sides of the bales. As the bales equilibrated to higher moisture contents, the resilient forces exerted by the modified flat bales decreased whereas those of the compress universal density bales in-creased.