eChapters

Abstract

Food texture is one of the most widely measured quality attributes during postharvest handling, processing, and consumption. Given the subjectivity in human perception of food texture, texture measurement remains a complex exercise and thus presents both a charm and challenge for researchers and industry practitioners. For fresh foods such as fruit and vegetable, textural properties such as firmness are widely used as indices of readiness to harvest (maturity) to meet requirements for long term handling, storage and acceptability by the consumer. For processed foods, understanding texture properties is important for the control of processing operations suchasheating, frying and drying to attain desired quality attributes of the end product. Texture and viscosity measurement is one of the most common techniques and procedures in food and postharvest research and industrial practice. Foods are complex systems exhibiting various degrees of elasticity, viscosity, and plasticity. Because of its complex structure and mechanical behavior, objective measurements of food texture may be influenced by a variety of test conditions, including rate of loading, the magnitude of deformations imposed upon the material, geometry of the loading surface, and localized yielding within the product tested. Various approaches have been used to evaluate the sensory attributes of texture in foods. However, the high cost and time consumption of organizing panelists and preparing food limit their use, and often, sensory texture evaluation is applied in combination with instrumental measurement.

Humankind has always been a perceptive feel for rheological testing, e.g. in physical and visual evaluations of material properties such as hardness, stiffness, flexibility, and viscosity, and their relation to end-use quality characteristics. People often naturally measure the quality of solid foods by gently squeezing them, or liquid viscosity is measured by gently rotating the liquid in its container. These intuitive measurements gradually became formalized into quantitative descriptions of material properties.

Rheology can be defined as the study of how materials deform, flow or fail when force is applied. The name is derivated from Greek word: rheos, meaning the river, flowing, streaming. Therefore rheology means “flow science”. Rheological investigations not only include flow behaviour of liquids, but also deformation behaviour of solids. Normally, to measure rheological properties, the material is subjected to a controlled, précised and quantifiable distortion or strain over a given time and the material parameters such as stiffness, modulus, viscosity, hardness, strength or toughness are determined by considering the subsequent forces or stresses (Dobraszczyk and Morgenstern, 2003). The term rheology was coined by Eugene C. Bingham, a professor at Lafayette College, in 1920, from a suggestion by a colleague, Markus Reiner (Steffe, 1996)

Abstract

Physical properties of food are aspects such as colour, structure, texture, rheology and interfacial properties, and composition. We have a range of instrumental methods for objectively characterising and measuring food structure and physical properties. These are useful for applications such as new product development, benchmarking, reformulation and specification.

Colour

Consistent and accurate measurements of the colour and visual appearance of food products is extremely important. Various methods are available for colour measurement, allowing a wide variety of sample types to be measured. Colour measurement results are typically provided on the CIELAB scale. Others are available on request.

Abstract

In India, the allium groups (onion and garlic) are important bulb crops for home consumption as well as sources of income to many peasant farmers in many parts of the country. The garlic bulbs are valued for their flavor and have wide applications in food and their antimicrobial, antifungal, insecticidal and antioxidative properties. The engineering properties of garlic bulb, clove and skin plays important role in the planning of various post-harvest operations like drying, sorting, grading, bulb breaking, peeling and designing the process equipments like bulb breaker, clove separator and peeler. The aim of this chapter was to study the engineering properties viz., physical, mechanical, aerodynamic and frictional properties of garlic bulbs, and cloves in both peeled and unpeeled form.

Introduction

India is rightly the spice bowl of the world. India has the largest domestic market for spices in the world. Indian spices are the most sought-after globally, given their exquisite aroma, texture and taste. Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is a world’s favourite, versatile horticultural commodity consumed for culinary, medicinal and antimicrobial purposes and is being cultivated for over 5000 years. The most important part of the garlic plant is the compound bulb. Each bulb is made of 6-26 cloves and is wrapped in a white papery sheath. Some varieties have a radish or purplish sheath. The bulbs are valued for their flavour, command extensive commercial importance because of their wide application in food and pharmaceutical preparations. Garlic is still probably nature’s most powerful medicinal plant to us today. It is recognized to have remarkable preventive and curative abilities. Garlic is mainly used aromatic spices and pickles as it has digestive, carminative and anti-rheumatic properties. It is being used in ayurvedic formulation since a long for curing lungs, healing the intestinal ulcer and checking muscular pain and giddiness.

Abstract

During present investigation a comparative study was done to see the effect of storage on physical properties of tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) packed in HDPE and stored under ambient temperature. Four varieties of tomatoes taken for current investigation were Badshah, Himshikhar, NS-524 and Raja. From the studies it was clear that TSS increased gradually during storage duration for entire tomato varieties due to loss of some moisture from tomatoes. Variety NS-524 shows maximum shrinkage among all during observation period.

Abstract

The chapter aims at introducing selected physical properties of food and biological materials in food process and application in the field of food technology. These physical properties of food are not only used for designing of food equipments but can also maintain the nutritive value of food to a greater extent during processing in these equipments.

Introduction

The investigation of food engineering is spotlighted on the inspection of equipments and system used to process food materials on a commercial scale. Building of system for food materials can be efficient if two factors are known, the nature of the food product and what happen to the food during its processing. Food materials are organic in nature and it has a certain kind of qualities which recognize them from other processed food product. Since food materials are organic in nature, they have (a) shapes usually found in normally non regular; (b) properties which differ from other food products; (c) heterogeneous arrangement; (d) properties are varied due to climatic conditions, ripening conditions, etc. and (e) several other factors such as (e) influenced by chemical changes, moisture content variation and enzymatic movement. Managing food materials with these remarkable attributes requires extra thought, for the most part by implication and extra sources or reasons for different varieties. The attributes of a food material that are autonomous of the on looker, quantifiable, can be measured, and characterize the condition of the material (yet not how it accomplished that state) are considered as its physical properties.

Introduction

Sem (Dolichos) bean, Hyacinth bean or Field bean is one of the most ancient crops among cultivated plants. It is a bushy, semi-erect, perennial herb, showing no tendency to climb. It is mainly cultivated either as a pure crop or mixed with finger millet, groundnut, castor, corn, bajra or sorghum in Asia and Africa (Maass et al., 2010). It is a multipurpose crop grown for pulse, vegetable and forage. The crop is grown for its green pods, while dry as well as fresh green matured seeds are used in various vegetable food preparations, as most of the nutritive value is concentrated in the seeds. FAO website reports that Dolichos lablab (field bean) is a dual purpose legume. It is traditionally grown as a pulse crop for human consumption in south and south-east Asia and eastern Africa. Flowers and immature pods also used as a vegetable. It is also used as a fodder legume sown for grazing and conservation in broad acre agricultural systems in tropical environments with a summer rainfall. Also used as green manure, cover crop and in cut and carry systems and as a concentrate feed.

Abstract

Quality assessment of fruits and vegetable before marketing and processing is an essential task. Various destructive and non-destructive methods have been investigated to achieve this goal. Among the several prevalent noninvasive methods, optical properties measurement methods also promotes for nondestructive quality inspection of fruits and vegetables. The optical properties of biological tissue are, therefore, very importance important for getting sample information and data quantification of the inside of the material. The main goal of this chapter is, thus, to introduce fundamental concept of optical properties, its principle and application in fruits and vegetables. The discussion of electromagnetic radiation for better understanding of the nature of light has also been explored.

Abstract

Thermal properties of food are its ability to conduct, store and lose heat. These properties are inherent in food processing and preservation practices. Thermal properties are important for modelling processes, engineering design of processing equipment, sterilization and aseptic processing. Important thermal properties are thermal conductivity, specific heat and thermal diffusivity. These properties depend on chemical composition, water fraction and temperature.

Introduction

Thermal properties are involved in almost every food processing operation. It is essential to have knowledge of thermal properties of foods which is important in analysis and design of various food processes and food process equipment involved in heat transport. Thermal properties of food are greatly depending on composition, temperature and density of food. Thermal properties required for heat transfer calculation include specific heat, enthalpy, thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity. Thermal properties of foods are related to heat transfer control in specified foods and can be classified as thermodynamic properties (enthalpy and entropy) and heat transport properties (thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity). Thermo physical properties not only include thermodynamic and heat transport properties, but also other physical properties involved in the transfer of heat, such as freeze and boiling point, mass, density, porosity, and viscosity. These properties play an important role in the design and prediction of heat transfer operations during the handling, processing, canning, storing, and distribution of foods.

Abstract

The electromagnetic processing instruments such as microwave is very commonly used at house hold level, hence understanding the behavior of food as well as factors affecting its dielectric properties becomes important. Dielectric properties (DEP) play an important in electromagnetic processing of food products and mainly depend upon the moisture content, physical properties, composition, temperature and power applied. Different methods have been used to determine the DEP of food material including parallel plate, coaxial probe, resonance cavity, transmission line and free space method. The selection of these methods is again based on several factors such as type of materials, accuracy of measurement, the scope of the research, frequency range, availability of equipments and resources. Present study thus summarizes the importance of DEP of food, influencing factors and the different measurement techniques.

Abstract

Rheological properties of dough from different flours are very important to know about the kneading and modeling process especially for development of bakery products. Rheological testing is helpful to examine the structural and fundamental properties of dough. The basic principle underlying evaluation of rheological properties are mechanical behavior of the dough, in conjunction with the physical structure of the dough, the molecular structure of the protein continuous phase in the dough and with chemical reactions of functional groups. This chapter presents some of the methods currently used in bakery industry for determining the rheological characteristics of the flour and the dough. The instruments such as Farinograph, Mixograph, Extensigraph, Alveograph and Amylograph, which are used for the measurement of dough rheological properties (due to visco-elastic behavior of dough) were described.

Abstract

The frictional properties such as coefficient of friction and angle of repose are very important in designing of storage bins, hoppers, chutes, conveyors, harvesters and threshers etc. Angle of repose is the angle made with the horizontal at which the material will stand when piled. The angle of repose is also important in designing the equipment for mass flow and structures for storage. The static angle of repose (b) was determined using an open-ended cylinder of 150 mm diameter and 250 mm height. The higher the moisture content, the higher the cohesion between the seeds. In terms of flow ability, the seeds are heavier and the inertia to move is increased. Coefficient of internal friction is the frictional resistance of seeds with each other. Coefficient of external friction is the frictional resistance between the seeds and the surface. The rolling resistance is directly proportional to the weight of the rolling object and to the coefficient of rolling resistance which is dependent on the rigidity of the supporting surface and indirectly proportional to the effective radius of the rolling object. The air velocity at which an object remains in a suspended state in a vertical pipe under the action of the air current is called terminal velocity of the object.

Abstract

The research work was conducted on the moisture dependent physical properties of kidney bean (White speckled kidney beans) were analyzed. Length, width, thickness varied between 1.53-1.90, 0.79-0.94, 0.58-0.76 cm for kidney beans, respectively. Arithmetic mean diameter and geometric mean diameter were 0.96-1.19 and 0.88-1.11 cm₂, respectively. Volume, Sphericity and surface area ranged between 0.44 -0.87 cm₃, 0.57-0.60 and 2.91-4.68 cm₂ for white speckled kidney beans, respectively. The kidney bean was soaked in normal water with initial moisture content 14.22 % (db) upto 270 min and attained the final moisture upto 83.23 % (ab).

Abstract

The knowledge of engineering (physical) properties constitutes important and essential data in the design of machines, storage structures and processes. The present investigation was carried out determine the physical parameter (diameters, mass, volume, density, sphericity, angle of repose etc.) of varieties KPS 10. The moisture content in green pea (KPS 10) was observed 411.77% (db). The average values of dimensional and geometrical parameter like length (D₁), width (D₂), height (D₃), AMD, GMD and SMD were found 9.517mm, 9.343 mm, 7.707 mm, 8.856 mm, 8.816 mm and 15.305 mm respectively. Mean values of mass of 1000 pea seeds, volume, bulk density and true density were found 329.501 g, 0.2 ml, 0.275 g/cm₃ and 0.304 g/cm₃ respectively. Average values of angle of repose, sphericity, porosity and moisture content were found 24.7, 0.926 %, 9.528 and 80.96%, respectively.

Abstract

Food processing involves the transformation of raw animal or plant materials into consumer-ready products, with the objective of stabilizing food products by preventing or reducing negative changes in quality. Without these processes, we would neither be able to store food from time of plenty to time of need nor to transport food over long distances. Food processing has also gained its importance in the wide variety of diet among people throughout the globe and availability of exotic food items at various places. Processing of food items enhance the taste, flavor and aroma of the food thereby increasing the overall chances of its acceptability among the masses. So, it is essential to determine and recognize the database of physical and engineering (aerodynamic and mechanical) properties of these agricultural products because these properties play an important role in designing and developing of specific machines and their operations such as sorting, separating and cleaning, also to determine the optimum in seed metering device in pneumatic planter and precision sowing machine to suite every size of these grains.

Abstract

Multi-commodity flours were prepared by blending rice flour, mung flour and potato flour with wheat flour in ratios of 0:0:0:100, 5:5:5:85, 10:10:10:70 and 15:15:15:55, respectively and packaged in glass jar, high density polyethylene and aluminium flexible packaging for biscuits development. The standardized formulations for biscuit had ingredients as 100 g flour/multi-commodity flour, 45 g sugar, 45 g hydrogenated fat, 1.25 g sodium bicarbonate, 1.25 g baking powder and 1.0 g curry leave powder. The biscuits were baked in convective baking oven at 180 > C for 10-15 min till baked. The well baked biscuits were removed from the oven, cooled to room temperature, packaged and stored under ambient condition. The physical quality (Mass, thickness, diameter, spread ration percent spread and bulk density), of biscuits were analyzed just after preparation under ambient condition. Results were also reported that the spread ratio of multi-commodity flour biscuits increased with decrease in the incorporation of wheat flour in multi-commodity flours. It is clear that spread ratio is mostly influenced by the diameter and thickness of biscuits.

In 1920, a 30-year-old Czech writer Karel Èapek, wrote a play called “R.U.R.” (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti or Rossum’s Universal Robots). For this dystopian work about a bad day at a factory populated with sentient androids, Èapek called the androids “roboti”, as suggested byhis brother Josef, a painter and writer. It was premiered in Prague on 25^th January, 1921.

Èapek was admired for his opinions:

My dear Miss Glory, Robots are not people. They are mechanically more perfect than we are, they have an astounding intellectual capacity, but they have no soul.

But surprisingly he was keen on gardening!

EAAMs (Electric Agricultural Aerial Machines) have emerged from drones used for both aerial filming, as toys and even as racing units. A Price water house Coopers’ study revealed that the global market for drone-powered business solutions was valued at $127.3 billion in 2016. For agriculture, prospective drone applications in global projects were valued at $32.4 billion. Stelios Kotakis and colleagues at market research firm IHS Markit projected that there would be around 400,000 shipments of drones to firms in the agriculture and forestry sectors in 2017. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations projects that by 2050 humanity’s ranks will likely have grown to nearly 10 billion people. Farmers will need to produce more with less, while preserving our environment for future generations. And society has a duty to help them achieve this. Although agriculture is perceived as a traditional economic sector, precision agriculture technologies have already boosted crop yields significantly in the last decades. The same study forecast that agricultural consumption would increase by 69% from 2010 to 2050.

This chapter traces the history of the electric quadcopter commonly known as the drone, prior to its use in agriculture.

As long ago as 1493, the versatile Italian Leonardo de Vinci, painter, sculptor, machine designer often inspired by his observations of Nature, made a sketch in one of his little notebooks of a screw-like machine next to which he wrote in his mirror-handwriting:

If this instrument made with a screw be well made – that is to say, made of linen of which the pores are stopped up with starch and be turned swiftly, the said screw will make its spiral in the air and it will rise high.¹

Four centuries later, in 1863, the Viscount Gustave du Ponton d’Amécourt, President of The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines, published a forty-page monograph in Paris, entitled “The Conquest of the air by propeller. Account of a new system of aviation.” In this he took the Greek words helico and pteron, meaning “spiral” and “wing”, and combined them into the word hélicoptère (helicopter). D’Amécourt and his friends were among those very few who were passionately convinced that the future of flying was with heavier-than-air machines. To prove their point, having built a fragile flying machine model driven by clockwork springs, they watched it ascend vertically for a few seconds to a height of less than 3 metres (10 feet), only to crash back to the ground.

The 21^st century dawned with interest in the potential of electric agricultural machines. Beginning in 2000, a concept study, MELA Mobile Elektrische Leistungsund Antriebstechnik Mobile (electric power train technology)supported by universities and organizations in Germany as well as Fendt Agricutural Company (AGCO) showed a possible solution on tractor electrification with electric driven auxiliaries as well as electric CVTs and implement electrification. In 2003 the University of Hohenheim developed an electric combine harvester called Magda. With the introduction of a 42 VDC power supply system, the range of small rotational drives and servo motors could be covered. They showed that if more power had to be transmitted, threephase alternating current should be used since threephase machines had a large speed range and a large range of constant power.

During the first years of the century, longestablished transport manufacturers have been quick to see the environmental advantage of electric propulsion, be it with batteries, hybridelectric or fuel cell. With airliners, Boeing, Airbus and Tupolev quickly saw the advantage. With motorcycles, names such as HarleyDavidson, Curtiss, Ducati, Saroléa and Royal Enfield have positioned battery packs between two wheels. With trucks, Daimler, Toyota, Cummins, Peterbilt, DAF, Volvo, Leyland, Kenworth, and Isuzi, among others have taken the electric route. With buses, Alexander Dennis, Scania, Volvo, New Flyer, Van Hool, DAFVDL, Blue Bird, Heuliez, Rampinican carry their passengers more silently. It therefore seemed only logical that traditional agricultural machinery builders should make the same transition. The first to do this was John Deere, established in Moline, Illinois in 1837.