Abstract: The pickup velocity of cut tobacco in horizontal pneumatic conveying pipe was studied with a high speed camera.By capturing the instantaneous images of cut tobacco,the process of cut tobacco movement from starting,rolling,saltation to being picked up by the air stream in a horizontal pipe was depicted,and the effect of physical parameters of cut tobacco and the conveying pipe on pickup velocity was examined.The results showed that:pickup velocity increased with the increase of particle density,particle's equivalent diameter and pipe diameter,and its change could be described by a correlation formula based on Reynolds number and Froude number.The empirical formula for calculating the pickup velocity of cut tobacco was set up via the regression analysis of experimental data.