Abstract: To study the effect of forced air cooling on cut tobacco properties after cylinder drying, a forced air cooling device for cut tobacco was designed. Flue cured tobacco C3L was chosen as the experimental material, and changes in drying temperatures and moisture contents of cut tobacco during both forced air cooling and natural cooling conditions were investigated. An image detection technique was also developed to analyze the curling ratio of cut tobacco under the different cooling conditions, and the size distribution of cut tobacco was analyzed in order to clarify the effect of cooling on fragmentation of cut tobacco particles. The results showed that:1) The forced air cooling had a cooling rate ranging from 16.5 to 25.0℃/min, much faster than the cooling rate of 4.2℃/min under natural cooling. 2) The forced air cooling led to a higher water loss than natural cooling due to enhanced mass transfer. 3) The cut tobacco after forced air cooling showed the curling ratio ranging from 1.75 to 1.84 as a result of the fast cooling rate, higher than the curling ratio of 1.67 under natural cooling. 4) Compared with forced air cooling, the natural cooling had a higher distribution ratio of cut tobacco with size greater than 3.35 mm, and the characteristic size of cut tobacco by natural cooling was also significantly larger than that of forced air cooling.