Physical and mechanical properties of locust beans are necessary for the design of equipment to handle, transport, process and store the crop. The properties were evaluated as a function of moisture content of locust beans. The locust seeds were tested for size and shape, true density, bulk density, porosity, sphericity, static coefficient of friction on plywood, aluminium and stainless, angle of repose and specific heat with various materials at the moisture content of 16.02 % (wet basis ). The average length, width, thickness and geometric mean diameter of the locust beans were 12.04, 8.36, 5.04 and 7.50 mm respectively, while the true density, bulk density, porosity, surface area and sphericity were, 1166.09 kg/m3 ,729.90 kg/m3, 37.37 %, 204.25 mm2and 0.67φ respectively. The respective values of static coefficient of friction for plywood, stainless and aluminium were 0.56, 0.51 and 0.48 while the angle of repose was 40.17o. The specific heat was observed to be 3.8 kJ/kg/K at moisture content of 10.50 %. The higher friction of coefficient was observed on plywood and the lowest on aluminium. Thework is recommended for machine designer and fabricator.

Keywords: Locust beans, angle of repose, bulk density, coefficient of friction, engineering properties.