Simulation and finite element model for mechanical response of tomato fruits

Production of tomatoes in Europe in 2014 was about 16.8 million tonnes, 9th in terms of agricultural production value.Unfortunately, fresh fruit is very susceptible to internal mechanical damage during harvesting, packaging and transport, and the quality can be substantially reduced by poor handling. Internal damage may lead to accelerated rot of a whole fruit,which is a food safety and economic issue. Thus, understanding the internal mechanical deformation or damage of tomatoes caused by an external force is an important issue.An emerging approach is to estimate the internal mechanical response (e.g. damage) of tomatoes using finite element (FE) models. Previous studies relating the application of FE models applications to post harvest estimation of internal mechanical behaviors of fruits and vegetables are abundant. Work concerning finite element modelling of fruits has modelled them as multi-tissue systems relating macro- to meso-mechanics

In this simulation finite element model for mechanical response of tomato fruits has been studied. You can see a figure of assembled part at below

The tomato is modeled as three dimensional part with elastic plastic material under compression test. Dynamic explicit procedure with sith smooth step amplitude are selected to simplify the simulation. After the simulation stress,strain and displacement are obvious.You can see some figures of this simulation at below

You can provide CAE ,INP,and English video files of this simulation here. The cost of these files is Fifteen Euros. you can click on the bellow bottom to beginning process

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