Vibration forces in the course of banana transport from a packinghouse to a central supply market

Banana shipments to distant retail markets end in mechanical injuries resting on the dynamics of the mechanical system composed by the load and the vehicle.
Getting a hold on the mechanical injuries in the course of banana transport from a packinghouse to a distribution market was the objective of the present work.
Bananas were harvested, packed and degreened as customary commercial practices and afterwards transported by truck along a paved road for about 150 km to the market.
An instrumented sphere and vibration sensor modules were positioned in the whole truckload to sense compression and impact forces.
The various parameters are read as analog inputs by means of their respective analog-to-digital converters and transmitted to a base station via radio frequency.
Data were collected at different intervals of time in response to remarkable events to the length of the transport time.
For the whole itinerary 82 peaks of more than 1 g (gravitational acceleration) were determined by sensors at the rear end of the banana load.
At the front end, far less vibrations were determined.
For a period of 1 h, the sensor at the front end of the truckload detected only four peaks higher than 1 g.
The observed vibratory patterns are recurrent in amplitude as well as in frequency suggesting that the mechanical system (load and vehicle) exhibit a unique vibration characteristic.

VIII International Postharvest Symposium: Enhancing Supply Chain and Consumer Benefits – Ethical and Technological Issues

R.J. Bender, I. Muller

compression forces, instrumented sphere, packinghouse, sensor module

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2018.1194.185