Non-destructive Testing (NDT): Development of a Custom Designed Ultrasonic System for Fruit Quality Evaluation


Yıldız F., Uluışık S., Özdemir A. T., İmamoğlu H.

in: Nondestructive Quality Assessment Techniques for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Pankaj B. Pathare,Mohammad Shafiur Rahman, Editor, Springer Nature, Singapore, pp.281-300, 2022

  • Publication Type: Book Chapter / Chapter Research Book
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Publisher: Springer Nature
  • City: Singapore
  • Page Numbers: pp.281-300
  • Editors: Pankaj B. Pathare,Mohammad Shafiur Rahman, Editor
  • Hakkari University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Optimum maturity at harvesting time is a very important parameter to ensure the final quality and shelf life of fruits. The fruits harvested too early or too late causes lack of aromatic compounds, different physiological disorders, and shorter shelf life. Therefore, optimizing harvesting time judgment can increase the yield and decrease the on-field losses. Fruit quality evaluation includes external (i.e., size and volume) and internal (i.e., texture, sugar content, and nutritional value) characteristics of fruits. In recent years, various non-destructive techniques have been generated to measure the quality parameters of different fruit samples at the time of harvesting or postharvest storage. Fast, cheap, and portable system without damage to fruits is required during the fruit quality determination. In this study, first progress of recent Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and destructive technologies and their applications for fruit quality evaluation are analyzed and compared by considering advantages and disadvantages. Second, performance of a developed custom-designed ultrasonic system is evaluated for internal quality evaluation of fruits. Ultrasonic system includes a programmable bipolar remote pulser unit (Ultrasonar, US 100), a couple of probes for signal transmission and reception, an oscilloscope, and a computer. Performance of the developed ultrasonic system is presented and discussed in the light of experiments based on the attenuation measurement using TT (Through Transmission) mode. In this study, four different tomato varieties have been used. Moreover, external characteristics (i.e., size and volume) of fruits are also determined using a developed image vision system for the packaging process of fruits. At the final stage of the study, firmness of four different tomato varieties (i.e., Salkım, Beef, Village, and Cherry) was measured using a commercially available ultrasonic scanner (Siemens Acuson S3000). As a summary of this study, the performance of a complete non-destructive quality evaluation system including custom designed (a) ultrasonic testing and (b) automatic machine vision system is reported and discussed.