International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
Abstract
Biophysical properties of agricultural materials are important in designing of processing machines. In this study, some physical properties of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruits were determined and their mutual relationships were studied. Dimensions (major diameter, minor diameter, and length), mass, volume, fresh and dry matter weight, as well as rupture point under uniaxial loading were measured. Other properties; including Poisson's ratio, modulus of elasticity, energy for rupture, density, arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter, diameter of equivalent volume sphere, and sphericity were calculated accordingly. Statistical analysis of the data indicated significant correlations between the rupture force and fresh weight, volume, dry weight, major diameter, minor diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter, and diameter of equivalent volume sphere. Fruit volume has significant correlations with fresh weight and average diameter. Correlations between major and minor diameters are very significant in this variety. Finally, regression equations were developed to model tomato biophysical properties
