A gelatinous foodstuff is to be conveyed from a holding vessel to a packaging line along a 10-m straight pipe run using pressurised sterile air above the material as a propellant to provide a...

A gelatinous foodstuff is to be conveyed from a holding vessel to a packaging line along a 10-m straight pipe run using pressurised sterile air above the material as a propellant to provide a volumetric flow rate to the packaging line of 5 m³h^–1. Care is required in the transportation since the texture of the foodstuff is known to be permanently degraded if the bulk of the material is subjected to high shear rates that exceed 250 s^–1. Using data that were obtained with a laboratory test using a capillary viscometer with a diameter of 2.5 mm and length of 500 mm, determine the minimum acceptable inside diameter of the transfer pipe and the pressure drop along the pipe if this diameter is to be used.