Effect of Moisture Content on Mechanical Properties and Terminal Velocity of Berberis

ماشین های کشاورزی

Article 6, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/jam.v1i2.11358

Authors

E. Velayati^{* 1}; B. Emadi¹; M. Khojastehpour¹; M. H. Saeidirad²

¹Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

²Khorasan Razavi Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center

Abstract

The study of mechanical properties of Berberis not only is useful for design and optimization of transportation, processing and packaging equipment but also can prevent mechanical injuries and losses. In this study force, deformation, energy and toughness were measured at different moisture content levels including 70-76, 45-50, 25-30 and 7-10 percent (w.b.). The decrease of moisture content caused increasing rupture force from 1.387 to 2.679 N, decreasing shape deformation from 3.387 to 2.413mm, increasing toughness from 4.297 to 8.220 J/cm3 and decreasing rupture energy from 0.921 to 0.661mJ. Effects of loading speed, force orientation and their interaction were investigated on just fresh Berberis fruit. It was indicated that only force orientation was effective on all investigated properties except toughness. The moisture content was identified as an effective parameter on terminal velocity. It decreased from 9 to 4.5 m/s with decrease of moisture content from 76 to 7 percent (w.b.).

Keywords

Berberis; Mechanical properties; Moisture content; Terminal velocity

References