Evaluation of Sorting Machine of Horticultural Products from the View Point of Machine Performance and Mechanical Damage of Fruit

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Biosystems Engineering, Agricultural Faculty, University of Tabriz, Iran

2 Department of Biosystems Engineering, Agricultural faculty, University of Tabriz

Abstract

Abstract
Iran is one of the main producers of fruits in the world. Grading, sizing and sorting of fruit is an important factor in the Iranian marketing and exportation. In this research, the performance of a mechanical sorter machine of semi spherical fruit and fruit damage during process were evaluated. This machine was operates based on the belt-roller mechanism. The effect of some operational characteristics of the machine such as feeding conveyor speed, transportation conveyor speed and fruit kind (two varieties of apple; Red and Golden delicious; and orange) was evaluated on the machine performance factors such as purity index, efficiency of process and fruit damage. The results showed that the purity index was 95.80% and 95.83% for apple and orange sorting, respectively and the optimum capacity of machine was 1 ton per hour at this condition. The fruit damage was negligible at the optimum operational condition such as feeding and transportation conveyor speed and feeding rate. It indicates that the designing and operational characteristics of machine were optimum and the sorting machine was very suitable to sort semi spherical products usable in gardens or cold storages.
 

Keywords

References

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Agricultural Mechanization
Volume 5, Issue 1
March 2021
Pages 43-53

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History

  • Receive Date: 09 June 2021
  • Accept Date: 09 June 2021

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