PFE-303 (Protected Cultivation and Secondary Agriculture)

Lesson 2 Physical properties of biomaterials and their applications

When physical properties of biological materials are studied by considering either bulk or
individual units of the material, it is important to have an accurate estimate of shape, size, volume,
specific gravity, surface area and other physical characteristics which may be considered as engineering
parameter for the product.
 The importance is associated with:
 Design of a particular machine or
 Analyze of behavior of products during process.
 The importance of:
 Shape and size of grain: These are used in screening, grading, and quality control of agro-
commodities. They are also important in fluid flow and heat and mass transfer
calculations, like drying, pneumatic separation, etc.
 Volume and Surface area of grain and food materials: the packaging and processing of
materials.
 Bulk density, specific density and porosity: Handling the material for filling in bags and
storage.
 Also help in calculating thermal diffusivity in heat transfer problems in hydraulic and
pneumatic conveying of materials.
 Color: most valuable techniques as light reflectance for selective separation in field as
well as I processing plant to remove undesirable off colored material from the produce.
The shape and size of the materials can be determined by graphical methods, dimensional
measurement, projected area method, electronic inspection systems.
SIZE:
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. In fluid flow, and
heat and mass transfer calculations, it is necessary to know the size of the sample. 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.
 It allows the sorting of fresh market various agro produces into size groups. This 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
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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.
 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
Size can be determined using the projected area method (Fig). In this method, three characteristic
dimensions are defined:
1. Major diameter, which is the longest dimension of the maximum projected area

2. Intermediate diameter, which is the minimum diameter of the maximum projected area or the
maximum diameter of the minimum projected area.

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

Length, width, and thickness terms are commonly used that correspond to major, intermediate, and minor
diameters, respectively.

2. Micrometer measurement:
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The dimensions can be measured using a vernier caliper or micrometer (Fig.), grain shape tester.
The micrometer is a simple instrument used to measure distances between surfaces. Most micrometers
have a frame, anvil, spindle, sleeve, thimble, and ratchet stop (Fig). They are used to measure the outside
diameters, inside diameters, the distance between parallel surfaces, and the depth of holes.

Fig.Vernier caliper Fig. Micrometer

3. Grain shape tester:

It consists of a plunger and a horizontal surface, in between which the grains is held and
dimensions are measured by dropping down the plunger on to the grain body.
SHAPE:
Shape describes the object in terms of a geometrical body. Shape 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, roundness, aspect ratio, ellipsoid ratio and slenderness ratio. Some of the shapes and their
descriptions are given below in Table 3.1. [Mohsenin, 1980].

Table 3.1: Shape and description of various agro commodities

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Sphericity: Accurate estimation of shape-related parameters is important for determination of terminal

velocity, drag coefficient and Reynolds number. It is also important to know the shape before any heat or
moisture transport analysis can be performed. Sphericity is the degree to which an object resembles a
sphere. It is given as
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Where, di denotes the diameter of the largest inscribed circle and dc denotes the diameter of the smallest
circumscribed circle

It is also given as

𝑑𝑒
𝑆𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 =
𝑑𝑐

Where, de is the diameter of sphere of same volume as the object and dc is the diameter of the smallest
circumscribing sphere or usually the longest diameter of the object. This expression for sphericity
expresses the shape character of the solid relative to that of a sphere of the same volume.

Assuming that the volume of the solid is equal to the volume of a triaxial ellipsoid with intercepts a, b, c
and that the diameter of the circumscribed sphere is the longest intercept a of the ellipsoid, the degree of
sphericity can also be expressed as follows:
1⁄
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑑 3
𝑆𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 = ( )
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒

1⁄
(𝜋⁄ 𝑎𝑏𝑐) 3
𝑆𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 = [ 𝜋 6 3 ]
( ⁄6 𝑎 )

1⁄
𝐺𝑒𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 (𝑎𝑏𝑐) 3
𝑆𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 = =
𝑚𝑎𝑗𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎

Where, a= longest intercept

b= longest intercept normal to a

c= longest intercept normal to a and b

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Roundness: Roundness of a solid is a measure of the sharpness of its corners and is defined as the ratio of
the largest projected area of an object in its natural rest position to the area of the smallest circumscribing
circle. Higher values of sphericity and roundness indicate that the objects’s shape is closer being
spherical.

Where,Ap is the largest projected area of the object in natural rest position and Ac represents the area of
the smallest circumscribing circle.

The object area is obtained either by projection or tracing

Roundness is also defined as

∑𝑟
𝑅𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 =
𝑁𝑥𝑅

Where, r is radius of curvature

N is total number of corners summed in the numerator

R is the radius of maximum inscribed circle

𝑟
𝑅𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜 =
𝑅
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Where, r is radius of curvature of the sharpest corner

R is mean radius of the object

Areas are obtained by projecting or tracing

Resemblance to geometric bodies

In some cases the shape can be approximated by one of the following geometric shapes:

Prolate spheroid which is formed when an ellipse rotates about its major axis. A prolate spheroid is a
spheroid in which the polar axis is greater than the equatorial diameter. e.g. lemon, grape.
Oblate spheroid is formed when an ellipse rotates about its minor axis. An oblate spheroid is a
rotationally symmetric ellipsoid having a polar axis shorter than the diameter of the equatorial circle
whose plane bisects it. e.g. grape fruit, pumpkin.

Right circular cone or cylinders is formed when a frustum rotates about its axis e.g. carrot and
cucumber.
After deciding on the shape of body, its volume and surface area can be calculated using the appropriate
equations.
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Having volume and surface area estimated in this manner, the actual volume and surface area can then be
determined experimentally and a correction factor can be established for the “typical” shape of each
variety of the product
Some of the interrelations between major dimensions of the ellipsoid give an idea of the shape of the
object such as slenderness ratio which is usually used for grading rice.
Length : width=Slenderness ratio

Width: length = Aspect ratio

Fruit size can be expressed in terms of major diameter, minor diameter and length.

Ellipsoid ratio = Major diameter: minor diameter

Aspect ratio= Length: major diameter