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Detection of Small Scale Mechanical Changes by Acoustic Measuring System

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  036097,  2003 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.14136) @2003
Authors:   József Felföldi, András Fekete
Keywords:   acoustic properties, firmness, fruit, vegetable, turgor loss, in-vivo tests

On the field of the theoretical and applied research of mechanical properties of horticultural produces there is a need for methods to detect and evaluate the small scale (1-2 %) firmness changes caused by different types of loads. The effect of a drop, impact, collision of the produces e.g. during the harvest, transport or processing or the effect of the turgor loss due to a surface injury cannot be measured by traditional (compressive) methods because of their destructive nature and/or the relatively poor repeatability. The acoustic firmness measuring method can be suitable for the mentioned purpose due to its very high reproducibility and non-destructive nature. The high-resolution acoustic measuring system (with automatic repeating feature) developed at the Physics-Control Department was tested for different produces. 0.1% change in carrot firmness was detected when turgor loss occurred. The system was found to be suitable to determine other microchanges of the produces as well.

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