Design and Development of Modular Customised Ration Storage System Silo for Service Specific Applications during Peak Winters at High Altitude Area

Conceptualisation of design and development of modular and customised ration storage system for Army rations sustainable up to -40°C was carried out. The Indian Armed Forces operate under various climatic conditions, which are inhospitable for cooking, storing fresh/perishable food products and carrying rations for their survival during an emergency. Hence, there was an ever-existent demand for a customised, user-friendly ration storage system. Considering a number of user-friendly features, a system has been designed comprising modular unit structures with insulated wall panels containing Polyurethane foam (PUF) sandwiched between metallic and composite material claddings. An insulated structure is required to maintain the temperature at high altitudes during extreme low-temperature conditions. The temperature and humidity are regulated and maintained using solar panels and humidly modulators. The modular structure with individual temperature and humidity control is suitable for the safe storage and preservation of fresh produce, fruits and vegetables, and milk and animal products. In case of perishable commodities of Defense supplies inclusive of leafy and tender vegetables, juicy fresh fruits, egg, chocolates, meat carcasses stored in silo are safe as its insulated structure ensures no freezing even upto -25° Celsius hence protects them from quality damage due to subzero temperature exposure and abuse. Therefore, the normal convention of the expected shelf life for each such commodity was extended approximately double the normal shelf life expected. An extensive design process involving CAD modelling followed by mechanical load simulation and analysis resulted in a robust and capable system. Each compartmentalised segment caters for an average one-ton material depending on the nature of the material. The system is suitable to store 3 tons of ration at a time to address the requirement of 100 individuals for 60 days in monsoon cut off and peak winter cut-off posts. Total energy consumption under fully load condition is approx. 2KW to maintain peak temperature gradient of 45-50°C.The outer surface of the structure can be camouflaged. The well-insulated structure ensures zero leakage and is sturdy to withstand a wind velocity of 60 km per hour and a standing snow load of 2 meters above it

Optimisation and Evaluation of Ricebean (Vigna Umbellata) Extrusion Process for Downstream Food Processability

Ricebean(Vigna umbellata), a native bean of North-Eastern part of India has not been explored fully for development of convenience foods although it is loaded with various vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, phytochemicals and bioactive compounds. The effect of extrusion parameters namely moisture content, barrel temperature and screw speed on expansion ratio, extrudate density, and breaking strength was investigated by using response surface methodology. It was observed that moisture content of flour had significant (p<0.05) affect on expansion ratio, extrudate density, and breaking strength of extrudates. The optimal combination of process parameters which resulted in extrudates with maximum expansion ratio but minimum extrudate density and breaking strength were 15 per cent moisture content, 110°C barrel temperature and 350 rpm screw speed. The value of water absorption index, water solubility index, swelling power, oil absorption index, bulk density, true density and colour for optimally extruded ricebean flour (OEF) was found significantly different (p<0.05) whereas value of proximate parameters were insignificant (P>0.05) than the native flour. The OEF was used for different downstream processings such as papadability, friability, steamability, cakeability, gravyability and porridgability and compared with that of native flour for their process quality parameters. The cake prepared with OEF had significantly (p<0.05) less baking time (25 min) than the cake of native ricebean flour (35 min). However, consistency and over all acceptability (OAA) of porridge from OEF was found significantly (p<0.05) higher than porridge of native ricebean flour. Hierarchical cluster analysis on OAA showed that porridgability and cakeability were most influential downstream processe

Development and preservation of a ready-to-eat cumin based appetizer with natural ingredients

358-362Spices such as ginger, pepper, cumin, chillies and many others are known for their stimulating effect and are used as active ingredients in appetizers formulations. A ready-to-eat (RTE) appetizer in the form of a chewy munch i.e. jeera munch has been developed by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The experimental design with active ingredients as variables and quality parameters such as acidity, acceptability score as the responses was used. Among the ingredients, raisins were pre-processed by frying in stable fat and cumin seeds were pulverized to a fine powder prior to the main processing. The optimized composition of ingredients was processed by concentration and dehydration. The product had the proximate composition of fat, 7.83; protein, 8.82 and carbohydrates 70.7%, respectively supplying about 77.7 Kcals per munch. The munches packed in metalized polyester pouches had a shelf-life of 9 months at 28±5°C as well as 37°C storage

Engineering Properties of Rice-bean Varieties from North-East India

Rice-bean (Vignaumbellata) is a non-conventional, under utilized and multipurpose crop of South and South-East Asia. Eleven rice-bean varieties were studied for their colour, bean area, bean volume, sphericity, bulk density, true density, porosity, angle of repose, static coefficient of friction, and thermal transitions. Beans of variety JCR-08-10 had dark (L: 20.96±1.00), trifling red (a: 0.42±0.1) and minute blue (b: -0.69 ± 0.13) in colour. The length, width and thickness of all varieties ranged from 6.52 - 8.44 mm, 3.87 - 5.28 mm and 3.14 - 4.35 mm, respectively. The sphericity, bean volume and bean surface area of these varieties were between 63.02 - 69.9 %, 30.94 - 70.92 mm3 , and 51.09 - 87.73 mm2 , respectively. The thousand-bean mass, bulk density, true density, porosity, angle of repose of rice-bean varieties were 57.64 - 118.72 g, 820 – 877 kg.m-3, 1138.40 – 1388.79 kg.m-3, 26.47 – 40.57 %, 9.57-21.40º, respectively. The varieties JCR-08-8, JCR-08-12, JCR-08- 15 had comparatively higher bulk density than other varieties. The static coefficients of friction for glass, stainless steel and aluminium were 0.29 - 0.37, 0.38 - 0.45, and 0.35 - 0.55, respectively. Differential scanning calorimetry thermograms revealed that JCR08-8, JCR-08-12 and JCR-50 had highest melting temperature ranging between 121.73 o C and 155.45 o C

Development, Stability And Sensory Acceptibility Of Cucumber-Basil Juice Blend

A blend of juices from Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and Basil (Ocimum sanctum) leaves was formulated with the help of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and its storage stability was evaluated. Large quantities of Cucumber get spoiled in India during harvesting season. Long term preservation method of Cucumber juice is useful to prevent the spoilage of Cucumber. Addition of Basil juice increases the nutrient value of the juice blend as well as provides health benefit to the consumer. However, excess quantities of Basil juice in the product lead to unacceptable sensory qualities. Therefore, ingredients composition of the juice blend was optimized by Response Surface Methodology (RSM), a statistical design tool in which a central composite rotatable design has been used. The responses were analyzed to fit a polynomial model by least square technique. Amount of Lemon juice, Basil leaves juice and Cucumber juice, were independent variables and the overall sensory scores and acidity of the product were selected as the response. Generally the coding is done for the uniformity within the design and to avoid the bias. The coding is from -1 to +1 through ′0′ for minimum, maximum and the centre point, respectively. The actual experimental ranges of the levels of the major ingredients (independent variables) used in RSM varied from 50 to 75, 25 to 50 and 5 to 10ml for Cucumber, Basil leaves and Lemon juices, respectively. The acidity response ranged between 0.2% and 0.42%, whereas the sensory score response ranged between 6.0 and 7.9 in the experimental design. The optimized juice blend was filled in sterilized 200 ml opaque white glass bottles. After filling, bottles were sealed with air tight cap and were pasteurized in hot water at 95° C for 15 minutes, and cooled.The physico-chemical, microbiological stability and sensory characteristics of the Cucumber-Basil juice thermally processed in glass bottle were evaluated during 6 months at room temperature (28° C ± 2° C). It was observed that mean pH values ranged from 3.89 to 4.00 during storage and the mean values of total acidity ranged from 0.25 to 0.36 g /100ml. Minor changes of total soluble solids (°Brix) values was observed during storage. Loss of vitamin C and β-carotene were 74.9% and 56.9% respectively after 6 months of storage. The result revealed that the optimized Cucumber-Basil juice is acceptable and can be preserved for 6 months with good acceptability

Optimization of ingredient and processing levels for the production of coconut yogurt using response surface methodology

In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the ingredient formulation and processing parameters of coconut milk yogurt production such as temperature, time, and amount of starter culture on the sensory evaluation responses. Besides, the physicochemical properties such as pH, titratable acidity, and viscosity of the yogurt were also analysed. The analyses show that the coconut yogurts have a pH from 4. 01 to 5. 79, acidity from 0. 461 to 2. 079 (%), and viscosity from 433 to 21,833 cp during the optimization process. From the analysis of variance, the R2 of all response variables is more than 0. 73 that indicates that a high proportion of variability was explained by the model. Based on the response surface 3D plot of the sensory evaluation, the optimum acceptability of the coconut yogurt processing parameter are at temperature of 37oC, 8 h of the fermentation duration, and 3%(w/w) of the starter culture

Synthesis of Cu2O from CuO thin films: Optical and electrical properties

Hole conducting, optically transparent Cu2O thin films on glass substrates have been synthesized by vacuum annealing (5×10−6 mbar at 700 K for 1 hour) of magnetron sputtered (at 300 K) CuO thin films. The Cu2O thin films are p-type and show enhanced properties: grain size (54.7 nm), optical transmission 72% (at 600 nm) and Hall mobility 51 cm2/Vs. The bulk and surface Valence band spectra of Cu2O and CuO thin films are studied by temperature dependent Hall effect and Ultra violet photo electron Spectroscopy (UPS). CuO thin films show a significant band bending downwards (due to higher hole concentration) than Cu2O thin films