Comparison of Package Cushioning Materials to Protect Vibration Damage to Golden Delicious Apples

Abstract

 Damage to fruits and vegetables continues to be a big challenge as global markets become a reality. Worldwide distribution of sensitive produce is faced with various levels of impacts from shipping and handling. Despite a variety of packaging options available today, bruising damage is commonplace for post-harvest apples throughout the supply chain. The major sources of bruising are compression, impact or vibration forces.

Vibration simulation carried out to measure the dynamic behavior of a apple during transporting. The experimental program included the dynamic study on-line. Operational modal parameter estimation was made based on acquired data for three types of cushioning materials (foam-net, paper-wrap and without (control)). To assess the dynamic behavior of package and the damage to apple due to transient vibration during transporting and the possible effect due to the damage of apple in package.

Six identified modes were identified in the frequency range (0-1.6 kHz) using two techniques of estimation. Peak picking method (P-P) and robust technique enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD) are applied to avoid harmonic components in application.

The results obtained in range control package shows that increasing damage volume compared to paper- warp and foam-net package, may be due to closing harmonic frequency of mechanical element with natural frequency of apple and this need much attention in design the system for fruit transport trucks in attempt to keep the resonance frequencies of fruit away from exciting frequency of rotating system. A comparison of experimental results of three types of cushioning materials shows that foam-net package is more suitable for packaging. The use of foam-net reduced the percentage of damage fruit by (50-63%).