Abstract: As a solution to the higher breakage rate of strips caused by mechanical action and the intrinsic quality of strips affected by higher temperature in cylinder loosening and conditioning,a pre-loosening device was developed,wherein the vertically sliced tobacco block was subjected to bending and pre-loosened along the layers formed natureally during baling.The conditioning cylinder was modified by replacing the long spikers with octagonal short ones and divided into four functional sections responsible separately for loosening,spreading,conditioning and casing to facilitate following processing.The results showed that the outlet tobacco temperature was lower(≤53℃),the loosening rate of strips was over 99.5%,the average amount of tobacco scraps reduced from 86.5 to 79.6 kg/batch,and the average amount of tobacco dust decreased from 6.1 to 3.2 kg/batch.The new system effectively reduced the processing intensity,decreased the breakage of strips,promoted the uniformity of heating and conditioning,kept natural tobacco aroma,and improved the processing quality of strips.