Module 1:

INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF ABE MATERIALS

LESSONS: IMPORTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF AB MATERIALS
Engineering properties are the properties which are useful and necessary in the design and operation of equipment
employed in the field of agricultural processing. They are also useful for design and development of other farm
machinery.
Unit operations such as cleaning, grading, drying, dehydration, storage, milling, handling and transportation, thermal
processing of foods is among the important operations in agricultural processing. In these operations while handling
of grains and other commodities the properties which play and important role are physical, mechanical, electrical
and optical properties of the AB materials.
Basic information on the properties of agricultural and biological materials/products is of great importance and help
for the engineers, food scientists and processors towards efficient process and equipment development.
LESSON 2. PROPERTIES OF AB MATERIALS
2.1 . Physical Properties
These are the properties that determine the visible appearance of materials - shape, size, volume, surface area,
density, bulk density, true density and porosity.
Determining the size and shape for instance is useful in handling, separation and storage. In sizing grain hoppers and
storage facilities, bulk density, true density and porosity (the ratio of intergranular space to the total space occupied
by the grain) can be useful; they can also influence the rate of heat and mass transfer of moisture during aeration and
drying processes.
The shape of product is an important parameter which affects conveying characteristics of solid materials by air or
water. Shape is also considered in calculation of various cooling and heating loads of food materials.
The frontal area and the related diameters are essential for determination of terminal velocity Reynold’s number and
drag coefficient. The density and specific gravity are needed for calculating the thermal diffusivity in heart transfer
operations, in determining Reynold’s number, in pneumatic and hydraulic handling of the agricultural materials.
The surface characteristics, colour and appearance are exploited for selective separation and storage of fruits and
vegetables. Some of the important physical properties are described below.
2.2 . Mechanical properties
These are properties that describe the behaviour of biological materials under load (either tensile or compressive), or
upon impact ion a surface. This is where you have properties like compressive strength and tensile strength and
coefficient of restitution.
Mechanical properties of a material are useful in size reduction and conveying operations.
2.3 . Di-electric properties
Materials' dielectric properties largely determine the materials behavior when exposed to or microwave fields for
purposes of heating or drying the materials.
Dielectric properties of a material vary with several factors. For AB materials the amount of water is generally a
dominant factor. Also depend on the frequency of the applied alternating electric field, the temperature of the
materials, and on the density and structure of the materials.
2.4 Electrical properties
Some electrical properties which are important in agro processing are electrical conductance, resistance, impedance.
Electrical conductance or capacitance has been used for determining the moisture content of grain. Electrostatic
separation of grains is also used for separating grains, based on the ability of the grain to hold electrostatic charge.
Electrical conductivity of the grain decides the ability of the material to hold electrostatic charge. Recently ohmic
heating has been in use for drying, pasteurization, blanching and other thermal processing of AB materials, based on
resistance heating. Ohmic processing, sometimes described as resistive heating, consists of passing mains alternating
current directly through a conductive food, which in turn leads to heat generation. Because heating accompanies the
current; heat distribution throughout the product is far more rapid and even, which in turn can result in better flavor
retention and particulate integrity compared to conventional processes. The efficiency of ohmic heating is dependent
on the conductive nature of the food to be processed and hence knowledge of the conductivity of the food as a whole
and its components is essential in designing a successful heating process.
2.5 Optical properties
Optical properties are related to consumer judgment on food appearance and produce some kind of visual effect. The
following can be defined as color, gloss and translucency.
Light transmittance and reflectance properties of AB materials are used for sorting, grading, maturity, surface colour
and blemish determination.
The use of hyperspectral, multispectral, infrared imaging and computer vision system have enabled even
determination of moisture and other chemical composition, contamination of agro commodities to greater
satisfaction of consumer and trader and reduced manual inspection, which might be subjected to error due to fatigue.
These systems offer the potential to automate manual grading practices and thus to standardize techniques and
eliminate tedious inspection tasks.
Module 2:
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
LESSONS 1: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The physical properties such as size, shape, surface area, volume, density, porosity, colour and
appearance are important in designing particular equipment or determining the behaviour of the product for its
handling.
It is important to have an accurate estimate of the engineering parameters of a biological and agricultural
product – shape, size, volume, specific gravity, surface area and other physical attributes. When studying
physical characteristics of an Agricultural products by considering either bulk or individual units of the
material it is important to have an accurate estimate of these properties which may be considered as
engineering parameters for that product.
It is also important to investigate the physical characteristics of foods/agricultural materials to gain
insights on how they affect in the quality and shelf-life of each commodity. Physical properties are normally
important in many food materials handling and processing operations.
1.1. APPLICATION OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIERS:
• Size, shape and density : Fruits and vegetables grading. Food materials quality evaluation
• Bulk density: For storage and transportation
• Shape factor and surface area: Heating and cooling process to predict the freezing and thawing rate
• Porosity: For shrinking mechanism during drying
1.2. Physical Characteristics

• Shape

• Size
 • Weight

• Volume

• Surface area

• Density

• Porosity

• Color

• Appearance

• Drag coefficient

LESSONS 2: S IZE OF AB MATERIALS

Size is an important physical attribute of foods used in screening solids to separate foreign materials,
grading of fruits and vegetables, and evaluating the quality of food materials. Size of the particulate foods is
also critical as it affects the viscosity and dispersibility and stability of the product. In the context of
postharvest operations, agro-produce size determination is important for several reasons (Moreda et al., 2009).

• It allows the sorting of fresh market various agro produces into size groups. This is helps in
assigning market and price differentials of large and small produce, to match consumer
preferences and to allow pattern packing. Pattern packing provides better protection of the
produce, utilizes the volume in the shipping container, owing to the higher packing density that
can be achieved with commodities of homogeneous sizes in comparison to that of jumble
packing.

• Size determination is mandatory for modern or on-line fruit/ vegetables/ grain/spices density
sorting, for which two size-related parameters, volume and weight, are required.

• Size measurement is important for determining produce surface area. The latter is also of use for
quantifying the microbial population on the surface of a foodstuff, for assessing the rates of heat,
water vapor and gas transfer, or for estimating the throughput of peeling operations.

• Fruit size can provide useful information for suitable working of some internal quality (IQ)
sensors.

• Grading of agro produce into size groups is often necessary in the food industry, to meet the
requirements of some primary and secondary processing machines, or to assign process
differentials of large and small produce.

• Shape features can be measured independently or by combining size measurements. Hence, the
determination of agro commodity size parameters allows simple shape sorting.

• Produce can be sized according to different physical parameters, such as diameter, length,
weight, volume, circumference, projected area, or any combination of these. It is easy to specify
size for regular particles in terms of their major dimensions like length, width and thickness or
major and minor diameter, but for irregular particles the term size must be arbitrarily specified.
Methods of Measurement of Size

1. Projected area method

 Major diameter, which is the longest dimension of the maximum projected area.
  Intermediate diameter, which is the minimum diameter of the maximum projected area or the
maximum diameter of the minimum projected area.

 Minor diameter, which is the shortest dimension of the minimum projected area.

LESSONS 3: SHAPE OF AB MATERIALS

Shape describes the object in terms of a geometrical body. It is also important in heat and mass transfer
calculations, screening solids to separate foreign materials, grading of fruits and vegetables, and evaluating the
quality of food materials.
The shape of a food material is usually expressed in terms of its sphericity and aspect ratio.

• Sphericity is the ratio of volume of solid to the volume of a sphere that

has a diameter equal to the major diameter of the object so that it can circumscribe the
solid sample.
Sphericity is an important parameter used in fluid flow and heat and mass transfer
calculations.

• As defined by McCabe, Smith, & Harriot, 1993, sphericity is the ratio of surface area of a
sphere having the same volume as the object to the actual surface area of the object.

Where:
Dp = equivalent diameter or nominal diameter of the
particle (m),
Sp = surface area of one particle (m 2), Vp = volume
of one particle (m3).
• Aspect Ratio (Ra) is another term used to express the shape of a
material. It is calculated using the length (a) and the width (b) of the sample as
(Maduako & Faborode, 1990)

• Roundness, as defined by Mohsenin (1970), “is a measure of the

sharpness of the corners of the solid.” Curray (1951) and
Mohsenin (1970) provided the following equations for estimating roundness under
different conditions of geometry and application:

Where: Ap = Largest projected area of object in natural rest position

Ac = area of smallest circumscribing circle
Sample Problem:
Calculate the sphericity of a cylindrical object of diameter 1.0cm and
 height 1.7cm
Solution:

 The volume of the object can be calculated by:

V=
 The volume of the sphere (rs) having the volume can be calculated to :

⇒ rs = 0.683 cm

 The surface area of sphere of the same volume in the

particle is:

 The surface area of the particle is:

 Then sphericity is calculated as :

LESSON 4: VOLUME OF AB MATERIALS

Volume is defined as the amount of three-dimensional space occupied by an object, usually

expressed in units that are the cubes of length i.e. cm 3, in3, m3 or liquid measure; liters or gallons. It affects
consumer acceptance, can be calculated from the measured dimensions or by using various methods suchs
as liquid, gas, or solid displacement. Volume is an important quality attribute in the food industry and is
inversely correlated with texture.
 Solid volume (Vs ) is the volume of the solid material (including
water) excluding any interior pores that are filled with air. It can be determined by the
gas displacement method in which the gas is capable of penetrating all open pores up to
the diameter of the gas molecule.

• Apparent volume (Vapp) is the volume of a substance including all

pores within the material (internal pores). Apparent volume of regular geometries can
be calculated using the characteristic dimensions. Apparent volume of irregularly
shaped samples may be determined by solid or liquid displacement methods.

• Bulk volume (Vbulk) is the volume of a material when packed or

stacked in bulk. It includes all the pores enclosed within the material (internal pores)
and also the void volume outside the boundary of individual particles when stacked in
bulk
(external pores)
Methods of Measurement of Volume

Volume of solids can be determined by using the following methods:

• Volume can be calculated from the characteristics dimensions in the case of the objects with regular
shape.
• Experimentally by liquid, gas or solid displacement methods. In this method, volume of food
materials can be measured by pycnometer (specific gravity bottles) or graduated cylinders.
• Volume can be measured by the image processing method
LESSON 5: DENSITY OF AB MATERIALS

Density (ρ ) of a material is the amount of that material occupying a certain space and is expressed in
units of mass per unit volume.
Quality of food materials can be assessed by measuring their densities. Density data of foods are
required in the separation processes, such as centrifugation and sedimentation and in pneumatic and
hydraulic transport of powder and particulates.
Measuring the density of liquid is required to determine the power required for pumping.

Particle density/true density is the mass divided by the volume of the particle alone. Density of
solid material constituting the true volume occupied by the material, excluding any interior
pores that are filled with air (blind and through pores).

Bulk density is the mass of a group of individual particles divided by the space occupied by the
entire mass, including the air space. Bulk density (ρB) is the density of a material when
packed or stacked in bulk. The bulk density of packed materials depends on the geometry,
size, and surface properties of individual particles (Lewis, 1987).
Methods of Measurement of Density

• The density of liquids can be determined by using a pycnometer.

• Liquid density can also be measured by placing a hydrometer in a breaker filled with liquid
sample.
• The density of liquid is calculated from the ratio of weight of the hydrometer to the volume of the
displaced liquid.
LESSON 6: SURFACE AREA OF AB MATERIALS

In designing a conveying equipment, cleaning and separation equipment determination of the surface area of the
product is important.
Some of the methods used for measuring surface area are:
 contact printing the surface on a light sensitive paper and measuring the area by a planimeter
 tracing the area on a graph paper and counting the squares

 use of a photographic projector

 light interception method and

 use of an air flow planimeter which measure the area as a function of the surface obstruction to
flow of air.
LESSON 7: POROSITY OF AB MATERIALS

Porosity is the percentage of the total volume occupied by the air. It is the measure of void space
between the materials.
Porosity allows gases, such as air, and liquids to flow through a mass of particles referred to as a packed
bed in drying and distillation operations.
Is a physical property characterizing the texture and the quality of dry and intermediate moisture foods.
Total porosity of particulate materials includes the voids within and among the particles.