biosystems engineering 101 (2008) 5868

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Research Paper: PHdPostharvest Technology

The simulation of the impact damage to fruit during the passage of a truck over a speed bump by means of the discrete element method
Michael Van Zeebroecka,*, Geert Lombaertb,1, Edward Dintwaa, Herman Ramona, Geert Degrandeb, Engelbert Tijskensa
a b

Department of Biosystems, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 30, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium Department of Civil Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 40, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

article info
Article history: Received 11 December 2007 Received in revised form 10 March 2008 Accepted 2 June 2008

The discrete element method (DEM) was used to study fruit damage during transportation. The DEM is a particle-based simulation technique which is well suited for the solution of granular material related problems in food and agriculture. In this paper, the application of DEM to food transport problems was demonstrated by simulation of bruising to apples stored in bulk bins during the passage of a truck over a speed bump. The effects of truck load, bulk bin position, suspension type and driving speed on damage were investigated. The simulations showed that higher truck loads lead to less bruising and that apples in bulk bins behind the rear axle suffered more damage than those in bulk bins in front of the rear axle. Furthermore, a considerable reduction in the damage was predicted in simulations where the truck has a soft suspension. Independent of truck load, suspension type and bulk bin position, the commercially signicant bruising (i.e. apples with bruise volume of maximum bruise above 500 mm3) was predicted to be insignicant for driving speeds below 20 km h1. At higher driving speeds, the extent of commercially acceptable bruising depended on various parameters. A reduction in the driving speed, an increase in the truck load and a reduction in the suspension stiffness all helped to reduce the occurrence of fruit damage. 2008 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

For most fruits bruising is the most common type of postharvest mechanical injury. Fruit bruising does not only affect the quality appreciated by the consumer, but bruises open the pathways for pathogenic attack, even when they are small

in size. The present study deals with bruising caused by transient vibrations or shocks. This form of damage is more frequently encountered than damage due to static compression (Mohsenin, 1973). In the literature, only a limited number of studies deal with the effect of transient vibrations on fruit impact damage. Holt

* Corresponding author. Flemish Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery, Ellipsgebouw Koning Albert II, Laan 35, Bus 40, B-1030 Brussel, Belgium. E-mail address: michael.vanzeebroeck@gmail.com (M. Van Zeebroeck). 1 Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). 1537-5110/$ see front matter 2008 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2008.06.003

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and Schoorl (1985) and Jones et al. (1991) developed a numerical model for the simulation of impact damage of apples due to transient shocks caused by road discontinuities such as bumps and potholes. Their model accounted for the interaction between the road, the vehicle and the load. The apples were assumed to be stacked in vertical columns, so that there are only two potential bruise sites on each apple. The following three sub-problems were considered: (1) modelling and characterisation of the road surface roughness, (2) prediction of the vertical vehicle response for a given road unevenness, (3) prediction of the contact interaction of the fruit (energy absorption in their study, but possibly also contact forces) and correlation of fruit interactions with bruising. The equations of motion of this system were solved numerically by means of the RungeKutta or the AdamsBashforth method. In the study by Jones et al. (1991), apple bruising was predicted as a function of the truck load, the bulk bin position, the bump height and the truck driving speed. A more accurate representation of the dynamic behaviour of the stacked apples can be obtained by means of the discrete element method (DEM). The DEM is a numerical technique to model the kinematic and dynamic behaviour of particles. In the case of packed fruit, each particle represents a single piece of fruit. In the DEM all forces acting on the particles (gravity force and contact force) are considered and the equations of motion of Newton and Euler are integrated to obtain the velocity and position of the particles in the next time step. The DEM was originally developed in the eld of rock mechanics and has been used extensively for engineering materials, but applications for biological materials are scarce, in particular for soft biological materials such as fruit. When used for the simulation of the dynamic behaviour of packed fruit, the rotation of the apples, the impact with all surrounding objects and the friction between the apples can be accounted for. Pioneering work with two-dimensional DEM simulations of in-transit fruit damage was carried out by Rong et al. (1993) for a total of 12 particles (i.e. apples). The contact forces between the apples were simulated for two types of road irregularities (curbs and ramps) and for both soft and stiff vehicle suspensions. In order to improve the control of mechanical fruit handling with respect to bruising, a generic three-dimensional DEM model was implemented in the DEMeter software by Tijskens et al. (2003). Van Zeebroeck et al. (2006a,b) also applied this model to simulate the dynamic behaviour of packed apples. New measuring techniques that allow for the determination of the impact parameters of biological materials in the normal and tangential directions have also been developed. Furthermore, the use of the DEM in the simulation of impact damage of fruit has been validated and DEM simulations have been applied to investigate impact damage of apples due to continuous vibrations during transport (Tijskens et al., 2003; Van Zeebroeck et al., 2003, 2004, 2006a,b; Dintwa et al., 2004, 2005a,b). In this paper, three-dimensional DEM simulations are used to investigate impact damage caused by the passage of a truck on a speed bump for apples in completely lled commercial bulk bins. Furthermore, the inuence of truck load, position of the bulk bin, vehicle suspension type and vehicle speed on fruit damage are investigated.

2.
2.1.

Materials and methods

Two-stage approach

The simulation of the apple impact damage during the passage of the truck over a speed bump was performed in two stages. In the rst stage, a two-dimensional vehicle model of a Volvo FL6 truck was used to predict the dynamic response of the truck during passage over the speed bump. In the simulations, the static load of the bulk bins was taken into account, while the dynamic interaction between the vehicle body and the bulk bins was disregarded. This is a reasonable assumption when no loss of contact occurs between the apples, the bulk bin and the vehicle body and when the resonance frequency of the bulk bin with the stacked apples is relatively high compared with the resonance frequencies of the vehicle. In the second stage, the dynamic response of the vehicle body was used to excite the apples in the bulk bin. The vertical response of the truck body depends on the suspension stiffness, position, driving speed and total truck load was investigated. A soft suspension, where the value of the suspension stiffness was halved, and a stiff suspension, where the stiffness was doubled, were also considered. The vibrations of the vehicle body were considered at three positions: (1) at the rear axle, (2) 2 m in front of the rear axle and (3) 2 m behind the rear axle. The vehicle speed varied between 20 km h1 and 50 km h1. Three different loading conditions were considered for the truck: lightly loaded, half loaded, and fully loaded. The dynamic response of the vehicle body was subsequently used to determine the dynamic response of the apples by means of the DEM simulations. The box (bulk bin) in the simulations has a length of 1.15 m and a width of 0.96 m, corresponding to the size of commercial bulk bins used in Belgium. The simulations were performed using DEMeter, a library of C DEM routines developed at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Each simulation considered 1512 apples in a maximum stack height of 0.57 m. It was assumed that the diameter of the apples could be represented by a normal distribution with an average value of 0.076 m and a standard deviation of 0.0076 m, covering the entire range of commercial apple diameter classes. The inuence of the aforementioned parameters on the apple bruising was investigated by means of a total of 90 DEM simulations. In each simulation, 7 s realtime are simulated in a computation time of 40 min using a computer equipped with a P4 processor operating at a speed of 2.4 GHz and a dynamic memory of 512 MB RAM. In the simulation, the rst 2 s were used to obtain a natural stacking of the apples in the bulk bin, which was simulated by dropping the apples from a certain height into the box. This event was not taken into account when determining bruising. The remaining 5 s in the simulation covered the vertical excitation of the box by passage over the speed bump.

2.2.

Roadvehicle model

In this section, the dynamic response of a truck during the passage on a speed bump is considered. The focus was on the response at the rear of the vehicle body, where the cargo

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was present. The calculations were performed for the particular case of a two-axle Volvo FL6 truck. The Volvo FL6 truck has a wheel base of 5.20 m and a maximum total mass of 14,000 kg. Similar types of trucks are frequently used for road transport of fruit. The simulations were performed with Matlab (Mathworks, Natick, MA, USA). In the following, the case is considered where a sinusoidalshaped speed bump excites the vehicle. The longitudinal unevenness prole uw/r( y) of the speed bump represents the deviation of a travelled surface from a true planar surface at each position y along the road:    H 2py L L 1 cos for y (1) uw=r y 2 L 2 2 In Belgium, the Royal Decree of 9 October 1998 prescribed a height H 0.12 m and a length L 4.80 m for this type of speed bump (Fig. 1a) (NN, 1998). These parameters were chosen such that the increase of the car body accelerations, and hence the discomfort of the driver, was the strongest at a speed of 30 km h1. A forward Fourier transformation with respect to the longitudinal coordinate y reveals the wavenum~ ber content uw=r ky of the prole (Fig. 1b). The wavenumber content showed zeros at kyn 2pn/L (n > 1) and was mainly situated in the range of wavenumbers ky below 2.6 rad m1 or wavelengths ly 2p/ky longer than 2.4 m. As the speed bump excited the vehicle simultaneously along both wheel paths, a two-dimensional vehicle model sufced. The main interest was in the calculation of the dynamic response in a frequency range between 0 Hz and 20 Hz. In this frequency range, the vehicle body and axles are assumed to be rigid and models for the simulation of vehicle ride behaviour

as shown in Fig. 2 are used (Cebon, 1993). The vehicle body and axles are represented by discrete masses, while the suspension system and the tyres are modelled as a springdashpot system. As part of an experimental validation for the prediction method for ground vibrations due to road trafc, a linear vehicle model was developed for the Volvo FL6 truck (Lombaert and Degrande, 2003). This is shown in Fig. 2. The parameters of the inertial elements and the spring constants have been determined from weighings, information from the truck manufacturer and an experimental modal analysis. The damping constants have been estimated from a t of the predicted and measured frequency content of the axle response during a passage of the truck on a ply-wood unevenness at a speed v 30 km h1. The following values were used (Lombaert et al., 2000; Lombaert and Degrande, 2003): the mass of the vehicle body mb 9000 kg, the rotational inertia of the body Ib 35,000 kg m2. The position of the rear and front axles with respect to the centre of gravity was l1 1.49 m and l2 3.72 m, respectively. In the following, the position of the rear axle position is referred to as the position y l1; the position at 2 m in front of the rear axle is the position y l1 2 m, while the position at 2 m behind the rear axle is the y l1 2 m position. The mass of the rear and front axles was ma1 600 kg and ma2 400 kg, respectively. The spring constants of the rear and front suspensions were kp1 0.61 106 N m1 and kp2 0.32 106 N m1. The corresponding damping constants are cp1 16,000 N s m1 and cp2 10,050 N s m1. The spring constants of the rear and front tyres are kt1 3.00 106 N m1 and kt2 1.50 106 N m1. The damping constants of the tyres were assumed to be zero, so that ct1 0 N s m1 and ct2 0 N s m1. This mathematical model of the Volvo FL6 truck has been shown to successfully predict the ground vibrations during a passage of the truck over the ply-wood bump for a range of vehicle speeds between 20 km h1 and 60 km h1 (Lombaert and Degrande, 2003).

2.3.

Discrete element model

In the DEM simulations, the parameters for the normal and tangential contact force models and the bruise prediction

Fig. 1 (a) The longitudinal road prole uw/r( y) of a sineshaped trafc bump as a function of the coordinate y along ~ the road and (b) uw=r ky in the wavenumber domain.

Fig. 2 Two-dimensional 4DOF model for a vehicle with two axles.

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given by Van Zeebroeck et al. (2003) and Van Zeebroeck et al. (2006a) were used. These parameters are briey summarised here. A pendulum device was used to develop a contact force model that describes the apple-metal impact. The model consisted of the parallel connection of a spring and a damper. For the particular case of Jonagold apples, the following values for the damping constants c (kg m1/2 s1) and the spring constants k (N m3/2) have been determined experimentally by Van Zeebroeck et al. (2003) (both R2 0.38): cR 914 465v 8:7r cG 914 465v 8:7r kR 336 712 434 707v 38 732r kG 1 117 131 434 707v 11 664r (2)

BV was performed in Matlab, allowing for further analysis of the occurred damage, such as the histogram of the number of apples with the volume of the largest bruise in a certain damage class and the number of apples with damage above a certain threshold.

3.
3.1.

Results
Roadvehicle simulation

(3)

(4)

(5)

where the subscripts R and G refer to the red and green side of the apple, respectively, while v denotes the impact velocity (m s1) and r is the radius of curvature (mm). According to the classical Hertz contact theory, the spring constant depends on the effective radius of curvature. Kuwabara and Kono (1987) derived the damping constant in a similar way. Furthermore, the parameters also depended on the impact velocity, as discussed in detail by Van Zeebroeck (2005). Although the parameters were only valid for the impact of apples on a hard wall, they could be modied to represent the contact forces for contact between apples (Van Zeebroeck, 2005). The values above indicate that the damping and spring constants were higher for the red side of the Jonagold apple compared to the green side. However, in the DEM simulations, distinctions were not made between the sides and average values were used to determine the contact force. In anticipation of the implementation of the viscoelastic extension of the Mindlin and Deresiewicz model in the DEMeter software (Dintwa et al., 2005a,b) a tangential contact force model based on dry Coulomb friction was applied. A value of 0.27 was used for the dynamic friction coefcient in the tangential contact force model since it had been determined experimentally for appleapple contact (Van Zeebroeck et al., 2004). The same value was also applied for the contact between the apples and the wall. Based on the DEM results for the contact forces, the level of bruising was determined. The model of Chen and Sun (1981) was used to predict bruise volume (BV) from the peak value (PF) of the contact force. A regression analysis based on results from the pendulum device determined the following relationship: BV 15:81PF 608:90 (6)

In the simulations, as the vehicle traversed the speed bump, it was excited by an imposed displacement uw/r( y) at the contact points between the vehicle and the road. This implied that the vehicle was assumed to remain in perfect contact with the road and that the exibility of the road was disregarded. The time history of the excitation was determined by the vehicle speed v and obtained from uw/r( y), replacing y by vt. Fig. 3a shows the time history of the excitation at the front axle for vehicle speeds of 10 km h1, 30 km h1 and 50 km h1. These three cases will be considered here. Apart from a small time delay, the rear axle experienced the same excitation. As the vehicle model was linear, the equations of motion were solved in the frequency domain. The frequency content b u w=r u of the imposed displacement was calculated from the ~ representation uw=r ky of the unevenness in the wavenumber domain:  u 1 ~ b (7) u w=r u uw=r v v

with a coefcient of determination (R2) of 0.90. In the simulations, the location of the impact on the apple surface was not stored. This requires a local coordinate system for each particle, a feature that was currently, not then available, in the DEMeter software. The BV was therefore interpreted as being the single impact BV. A validation of the model can be found in Van Zeebroeck et al. (2006a). The calculation of the

Fig. 3 (a) Time history uw/r(t) and (b) frequency content b uw=r u of the signal applied at the vehicle axles during the passage on a speed hump at 10 km hL1 (dotted line), 30 km hL1 (solid line) and 50 km hL1 (dashed line).

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This expression shows how the vehicle speed v couples the ~ wavenumber content uw=r ky of the unevenness prole to b the frequency content u w=r u of the signal that is applied to each axle of the vehicle. A disturbance with a wavelength ly corresponds to a harmonic excitation of the vehicle at a frequency v/ly. Fig. 3b shows the frequency content of the excitation for the same three speeds. As can be anticipated from Eq. (7), the frequency content shifted to higher frequencies for increasing vehicle speed. In the following, results are given for the vehicle response and the reader is referred to Lombaert et al. (2000) for more details about the equations of motion of the vehicle. b Fig. 4a shows the displacement u u of the vehicle body on top of the rear axle. The displacement u(u) was obtained from the displacement ub(u) at the centre of gravity of the truck body and the rotation fb(u) about the centre of gravity as ub(u) l1fb(u). At a speed of 10 km h1, the vehicle reacted nearly statically and the displacement of the vehicle body (Fig. 4a) was similar to the imposed displacement (Fig. 3b). At higher vehicle speeds, the dynamic excitation become more important, and a resonance frequency near 1.4 Hz appeared. This corresponds to a pitch and bounce mode of the vehicle, where the rear part of the vehicle body rotates about a rotational axis near the front axle. At low frequencies between 0 Hz and 2 Hz, the response was larger for the speed of 30 km h1, as expected from the results in Fig. 3b. The higher speed of 50 km h1 further shifted the response to higher frequencies, but did not lead to a greater response. Fig. 4b shows the time history u(t) of the displacement that has been obtained as the inverse Fourier transformation of

b u u in Fig. 4a. At a time t 1.78 s, the front axle of the truck was at the centre of the bump. However, it can be seen that the excitation at the front axle is relatively unimportant to the response at the rear part of the vehicle body. The response was dominated by the passage of the rear axle at a time t which was equal to 3.66 s, 2.41 s and 2.16 s for the vehicle speeds of 10 km h1, 30 km h1 and 50 km h1, respectively. At the lowest vehicle speed, the response showed quasi-static lifting of the vehicle during the passage on the speed bump. This was no longer observed in the response at the higher vehicle speeds. Fig. 5a and b shows similar results for the acceleration at b the rear of the truck body. As the frequency content a u of b the acceleration is obtained as the product of u2 and u u (Fig. 4a), the higher frequency range is more important. The maximum response in the time domain (Fig. 5b) was still obtained for the vehicle speed of 30 km h1. In Fig. 6, the predicted inuence of the position on the truck body acceleration is shown for the passage of the partly loaded truck on the speed bump at a speed of 30 km h1. The displacement of the vehicle body on top of the rear axle is compared to the response at 2 m in front of the rear axle ( y l1 2 m) and 2 m behind the rear axle ( y l1 2 m). The greatest frequency content is found at y l12 m (Fig. 6a) or, behind the rear axle. The peak response in the time domain (Fig. 6b) is also found at this position. This is because the response of the rear part of the truck was dominated by a pitch and bounce mode that involves a rotation of the vehicle body about an axis close to the front axle. The displacements and

b Fig. 4 (a) Frequency content uu and (b) time history u(t) of the displacement at the rear of the truck during the passage on a speed hump at 10 km hL1 (dotted line), 30 km hL1 (solid line) and 50 km hL1 (dashed line).

Fig. 5 Passage of the truck on a speed bump. (a) Frequency b content au and (b) time history a(t) of the acceleration at the rear of the truck during the passage on a speed hump at 10 km hL1 (dotted line), 30 km hL1 (solid line) and 50 km hL1 (dashed line).

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Fig. 6 Passage of the truck on a speed bump at 30 km hL1. b (a) Frequency content au and (b) time history a(t) of the vehicle body acceleration at the 2 m in front of the rear axle (dotted line), at the rear axle (solid line) and at 2 m behind the rear axle (dashed line).

Fig. 7 Passage of the truck on a speed bump at 30 km hL1. b (a) Frequency content au and (b) time history a(t)of the vehicle body acceleration for a lightly loaded (dotted line), a partly loaded (solid line) and fully loaded truck (dashed line).

accelerations of the vehicle body therefore increased with the distance from the front axle. In Fig. 7, the predictions for the partly loaded truck are compared to those for a lightly loaded truck (mb 5200 kg, Ib 19,200 kg m2) and a fully loaded truck (mb 13,000 kg, Ib 42,700 kg m2). The centre of gravity of the vehicle body was recalculated by assuming that the centre of gravity of the load coincided with the location of the rear axle. The change of the vehicle body mass mb therefore mainly affects the frequency at which the pitch and bounce mode of the rear part occurs (Fig. 7a). The inuence of the mass mb can be understood by considering the problem of a simple sprung mass system, excited at its base by uw/r(ur). When ur and x represent the resonance frequency and the damping ratio of the sprung mass system, respectively, a higher mass m lowers both the resonance frequency ur and the damping ratio x. The shift of the resonance frequency is clearly observed in Fig. 7a. For the sprung mass system, the acceleration at the resonance frequency ur equals p uruw/r(ur)/2x and scales with the mass m as uw=r ur = m. However, the decrease in acceleration at resonance with an increasing mass m is partly compensated by the change of the frequency content uw/r(ur) with the resonance frequency ur (Fig. 3b). The change of the resonance frequency will also affect the speed at which the maximum response occurs, as can be understood from Fig. 3b. Fig. 7b shows how the peak acceleration in the time domain decreases with an increasing mass mb.

Fig. 8 compares the rear body acceleration for three values of both the front and the rear suspension stiffness for the halfloaded truck. Because the response of the vehicle body on top of the rear axle is being considered, the results are mainly affected by the change of kp1. For a simple sprung mass system, higher suspension stiffness increases the resonance frequency ur and lowers the damping ratio x. The shift of the resonance frequency is clearly observed in Fig. 8a. The acceleration at the resonance frequency scales with the spring constant k of the sprung mass system as k1.5. The strong increase with k is only partly compensated by the generally lower values uw/r(ur) (Fig. 3b) for increasing resonance frequencies ur. The speed at which the maximum response is predicted to occur in the frequency domain will shift to lower speeds for the smaller and higher speeds for the larger suspension stiffness. The peak acceleration in the time domain (Fig. 8b) increases with the suspension stiffness kp1.

3.2.

Discrete element simulations

Using DEM simulations, the dynamic response of the stacked apples during the passage of the truck on the speed bump was determined. Fig. 9 shows eight snapshots that visualise the position of the apples at different times. These snapshots have been determined by means of the DEMeter software. At the time t t1, the initial position of the apples at a certain height above the box is shown. The height of the domain

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Fig. 8 Passage of the truck on a speed bump at 30 km hL1. b (a) Frequency content au and (b) time history a(t) of the vehicle body acceleration for suspension stiffness kp1/2 and kp2/2 (dotted line), kp1 and kp2 (solid line), and 2kp1 and 2kp2 (dashed line).

by the vertical response of the vehicle body at the times t > t3. In the particular case of the stiff suspension, it can be observed how all apples became airborne at a certain time t t4. Some more images of the apples during the event are shown for the times t t5, t t6 and t t7, while t t8 shows the nal position of the apples when the vertical movement of the vehicle body had diminished. These predictions show that for the case of the stiff suspension, where some of the apples became airborne, the dynamic interaction between the apples and the vehicle might affect the vehicle response. Van Zeebroeck et al. (2006a,b) showed that for each simulation, a histogram of the bruising with a distribution of the apples according to the BV of their maximum bruise can be given. For the particular case of the lightly loaded truck, with a bulk bin at y l1 2 m and a driving speed of 35 km h1, an example of histogram is shown in Fig. 10. Because 90 simulations were carried out the information in the histograms was further reduced by considering only the number of apples with a maximum bruised volume above 500 mm3 and 2600 mm3 (Tables 1 3). This information is sufcient to evaluate bruising. Based on the The United States Standards for Grades of Apples and previous research, it can be stated that apples with a single BV beyond 500 mm3 can be considered as being injured, which means that a defect is present that detracts from the apples appearance, edibility, and shipping quality (NN, 2002; Van Zeebroeck et al., 2007). Apples with a single BV beyond 2600 mm3 can be considered as being seriously damaged, indicating that a defect is present that seriously detracts from the appearance, edibility, and shipping quality.

3.2.1. Effect of truck load (reference suspension) on apple bruising

considered in the simulations is therefore larger than the actual height of a bulk bin. At the time t > t1, the apples were dropped in the box (t t2), where they obtain their natural stacking as shown for the time t t3. The bulk bin was excited The truck load was predicted to have an important effect on the amount of bruising for all driving speeds. Higher truck loads tended to decrease the predicted apple bruising. For lightly loaded trucks, only driving speeds below 30 km h1

Fig. 9 Position of the stacked apples for the case of a bulk bin located at the rear axle in the case of a truck with a stiff suspension crossing the speed bump at a speed of 50 km hL1: t [ t1 initial position of the apples prior to the stacking (no contact); t [ t2 the apples are dropped in the box; t [ t3 the apples have obtained their natural stacking; t > t3 excitation of the bulk bin by the passage on the speed bump; t [ t4 the apples become airborne; t [ t5, t [ t6 and t [ t7 show some more images of the apples during the event; t [ t8 shows the nal position of the apples.

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Table 1 The effect of driving speed, truck load and suspension type on apple bruising for bulk bins at y [ l1 (rear axle) Velocity (km h1) Damage > 500 mm3 Heavy damage > 2600 mm3
0 0 619 741 626 501 0 46 163 27 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 1324 1434 1380 634 0 0 0 0 0 0

Lightly loaded truck (reference suspension) 20 5 25 90 30 1456 35 1483 40 1469 50 1487 Half full truck (reference suspension) 20 27 25 732 30 1141 35 584 40 158 50 162 Full truck (reference suspension) 20 24 25 15 30 43 35 21 40 7 50 8 Stiff suspension (half full truck) 20 26 25 417 30 1500 35 1500 40 1500 50 1481 Soft suspension (half full truck) 20 10 25 15 30 6 35 17 40 11 50 24

Fig. 10 Histogram of the number of apples with their maximum single bruise volume in damage classes for a bulk bin at y [ l1 D 2 m and the passage of a lightly loaded truck on the speed bump at a driving velocity of 35 km hL1.

gave rise to low bruising for bulk bins at y l1 2 m and y l1. In the case of y l1 2 m, driving speeds below 25 km h1 are necessary to achieve commercially acceptable bruising. It can be concluded that for lightly loaded trucks and all bulk bin positions driving speeds below 25 km h1 are necessary to maintain commercially acceptable bruising. For the half-loaded truck there was a clear peak in the predicted damage for all bulk bin positions around 2535 km h1. For bulk bins at y l1 2 m and y l1, this is the only critical driving speed. In this case, bruising below 25 km h1 and beyond 35 km h1 can be neglected (n.b. driving speeds beyond 50 km h1 were not simulated). For bulk bins at y l1 2 m, the 2535 km h1 zone was also critical, but beyond 35 km h1 the predicted bruising was still considerable. In this case only driving speeds below 25 km h1 gave rise to commercially acceptable bruising. Therefore, it can be concluded that for half-loaded trucks and all bulk bin positions driving speeds below 25 km h1 are necessary to maintain commercially acceptable apple bruising. For fully loaded trucks and bulk bins at y l1 2 m and y l1, the bruising was commercially acceptable for all driving speeds (again remembering that driving speeds beyond 50 km h1 were not simulated). On the other hand, driving speeds between 25 km h1 and 35 km h1 gave rise to considerable predicted bruising for bulk bins at y l1 2 m. In this case, only driving speeds below 25 km h1 and beyond 35 km h1 gave rise to commercially acceptable bruising (once again remembering that speeds beyond 50 km h1 were not simulated). It can be concluded that for fully loaded trucks and all bulk bin positions, driving speeds below 25 km h1 and between 35 km h1 and 50 km h1 can lead to commercially acceptable bruising. The important inuence of the truck load on the amount of apple bruising can be explained by the fact that the truck load

The second and third columns note the number of apples with at least one bruise with a bruise volume higher than, respectively, 500 and 2600 mm3 The bold lines indicate the velocity at which the peak damage occurs.

lowers the acceleration levels in the time domain (Fig. 7b). Furthermore, the driving speed at which the peak damage occurs also depends on the truck speed. The peak damage for lightly loaded trucks occurs at a higher velocity (35 km h1) than that for fully loaded trucks (2530 km h1). This can be explained by the fact that higher truck load lowers the resonance frequency ur (Fig. 7a) and therefore the critical driving speed at b which u w=r ur is at a maximum. This was explained in detail in Section 3.1. The results in Tables 13 show that, for bulk bins at y l1 2 m, the number of apples predicted to have commercial bruising in the case of the fully loaded truck is only 33% of the number for lightly loaded trucks. For bulk bins at y l1 2 m and y l1, this effect is much more pronounced. The number of apples with commercial bruising in the case

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Table 2 The effect of driving speed, truck load and suspension type on apple bruising for bulk bins at y [ l1 D 2 m (in front of rear axle) Velocity (km h1) Damage > 500 mm3 Heavy damage > 2600 mm3
0 0 23 213 105 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 214 412 530 780 0 0 0 0 0 0

Table 3 The effect of driving speed, truck load and suspension type on apple bruising for bulk bins at y [ l1 L 2 m (behind rear axle) Velocity (km h1) Damage > 500 mm3 Heavy damage > 2600 mm3
0 60 1027 829 706 525 0 1114 1104 211 14 240 0 193 30 0 0 0 0 794 1360 1403 1346 904 0 0 0 0 0 3

Lightly loaded truck (reference suspension) 20 19 25 16 30 692 35 1288 40 1178 50 381 Half full truck (reference suspension) 20 12 25 30 30 29 35 66 40 76 50 31 Full truck (reference suspension) 20 19 25 13 30 10 35 15 40 28 50 32 Stiff suspension (half full truck) 20 14 25 45 30 1305 35 1444 40 1485 50 1495 Soft suspension (half full truck) 20 7 25 5 30 8 35 9 40 9 50 14

Lightly loaded truck (reference suspension) 20 16 25 986 30 1499 35 1494 40 1491 50 1480 Half full truck (reference suspension) 20 88 25 1492 30 1494 35 1310 40 468 50 1313 Full truck (reference suspension) 20 55 25 1234 30 746 35 35 40 35 50 179 Stiff suspension (half full truck) 20 48 25 1481 30 1500 35 1500 40 1500 50 1499 Soft suspension (half full truck) 20 19 25 19 30 8 35 13 40 59 50 325

The second and third columns note the number of apples with at least one bruise with a bruise volume higher than, respectively, 500 and 2600 mm3. The bold lines indicate the velocity at which the peak damage occurs.

The second and third columns note the number of apples with at least one bruise with a bruise volume higher than, respectively, 500 and 2600 mm3. The bold lines indicate the velocity at which the peak damage occurs.

of the fully loaded truck is predicted to be less than 3% of that for lightly loaded trucks.

apples with commercial bruising at y l1 2 m only 5% of the number in the case where y l1 2 m.

3.2.2.

Effect of bulk bin position on apple bruising

The position of the bulk bin position has a large inuence on the amount of bruising predicted. Bruising increased from y l1 2 m over y l1 to y l1 2 m. This result could be expected as during the passage of the rear axle on the speed bump, the truck body exhibited a pitch and bounce motion with a rotation centre near the front axle (Fig. 6b). The results in Tables 13 show that the number of apples predicted to have commercial bruising for the lightly loaded truck where y l1 2 m is half of the number in the case where y l1 2 m. For the half loaded and fully loaded trucks the difference was even more pronounced with the number of

3.2.3. Effect of suspension type (half-loaded trucks) on apple bruising

Suspension type is also an important inuence on the amount of bruising. In the case of the soft suspension, the amount of apple bruising predicted was negligible for all driving speeds and bulk bin positions, whereas for the stiff suspension there was considerable bruising. This result could be expected as in Fig. 8b it was demonstrated that the acceleration levels in the time domain increased with suspension stiffness. For the stiff suspension commercial bruising was predicted to start at 30 km h1 for bulk bins at y l1 2 m, y l1 and 25 km h1 for bulk bins at y l1 2 m.

biosystems engineering 101 (2008) 5868

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The results in Tables 13 show that the vehicle speed that corresponds to the maximum predicted bruising increases with the suspension stiffness. This is in accordance with the larger resonance frequency of a stiffer suspension (Fig. 8a) and the effect of the vehicle speed on the excitation. Furthermore, these results show that for bulk bins at y l1 2 m, the number of apples predicted to have commercial bruising in the case of the truck with the soft suspension is only 6% of the number for the stiff suspension. For bulk bins at y l1 2 m and y l1, this effect is even more pronounced. The number of apples predicted to have commercial bruising is only l% of the number in the case of the stiff suspension.

3.2.4.

Effect of driving velocity on apple bruising

In all situations (different truck loads and suspension types) driving speeds of 20 km h1 (and less) do not lead to commercially signicant apple bruising. In almost all cases considered, the predicted peak damage occurred at a vehicle speeds between 25 km h1 and 35 km h1. However, for bulk bins at y l1 2 m and the case of the stiff suspension the largest amount of damage was predicted for a vehicle speed of 50 km h1. The vehicle speed at which the largest amount of damage was predicted corresponded to the highest accelerations levels of the vehicle body. For the particular case of the halfloaded truck and a bulk bin at y l1, the largest amount of predicted damage (Table 1) and the peak acceleration (Fig. 5a) occurred at a speed of 30 km h1.

4.

Discussion

The previous remarks regarding the inuence of the truck load, the driving speed, the bulk bin position and the suspension type on the apple bruising are in agreement with results of simulations, experiments reported in literature, and operating experience. However, relatively little is found in literature on the effect of transient vibrations or shocks on fruit bruising. The study by Holt and Schoorl (1985) demonstrates the superiority of soft vehicle suspensions over hard suspensions in reducing apple bruising due to shocks by potholes and bumps, but to date no other experimental results on the inuence of the truck load and the bulk bin position can be found in literature for transient vibrations or shocks. For continuous vibrations, Hinsch et al. (1993) and Timm et al. (1996) demonstrated the superiority of air-ride suspensions (soft suspension) in reducing fruit bruising, as compared to steel spring suspensions (hard suspension). Although Berardinelli et al. (2005), working with pears, measured increasing continuous vibrations levels from the front to middle position to rear position and they gave no information on the level pear damage at the different positions. As for transient vibrations, no data on the effect of truck load on fruit bruising is found in literature for continuous vibrations. Numerical simulations of fruit damage due to transient or continuous vibrations are also rare. Schoorl and Holt (1985) demonstrated, using a theoretical method similar to that of Jones et al. (1991), the superiority of soft suspensions over hard suspensions in reducing apple bruising when shocks are provoked by potholes and bumps. The pioneering work of Rong et al. (1993) of DEM simulations also

demonstrated the clear effect of suspension type on apple bruising. In the numerical study of Jones et al. (1991) the effect of truck load, driving speed and bulk bin position on fruit bruising was considered. Although a less elaborate model was used to describe the dynamic behaviour of the stacked apples, the results were in a very close agreement with those of the present study. Jones et al. (1991) also found that increasing truck load decreased the bruising. The interaction of load and suspension, when load is treated as a single mass, was recognised by Page (1973) who noted that as the sprung mass (or the load) increased relative to the unsprung mass the acceleration of the unsprung mass decreased. Jones et al. (1991) also found that bruising increased as the stacked apples were moved from 1.25 m in front of the rear axle, to above the rear axle, and then to 1.25 m behind the rear axle. For lightly loaded trucks (0.1 tonne) and for speed bumps with slopes at 45 , a length of 0.24 m and the same height of 0.12 m as in the present study, the peak damage is found at a similar speed of 35 km h1. For 1 tonne loaded trucks, the peak damage occurs at a lower speed of 30 km h1, which agrees with the present results. For more heavily loaded trucks (2 tonne and 4 tonne) Jones et al. (1991) found the largest amount of damage for vehicle speeds of 54 km h1 and 72 km h1 for the 2 tonne and 4 tonne truck load, respectively. In the present results, however, the peak damage was predicted in all cases for speeds between 25 km h1 and 35 km h1, except for the soft suspension simulation where the peak damage was at 50 km h1 (again noting that higher speeds were not considered). The difference is probably due to the different shape of the speed bump model used in the study of Jones et al. (1991). In the present simulations with the sinusoidal-shaped speed bump, the largest amount of damage generally occurs at a speed close to 30 km h1. This can be explained by the fact that the speed bump had been designed such that the increase of the vehicle body accelerations was greatest at this speed (NN, 1998). The shape of the speed bump is therefore an important parameter that affects the vehicle response and, therefore, the amount of bruising. Extrapolations to other sinusoidal speed bumps could be made, considering that the vehicle response scales linearly with the height H of the speed bump and that the predictions only depend on the ratio v/L of the vehicle speed v and the length L of the bump. Further experimental evidence can be found in Jones et al. (1991), who observed during the unloading of produce vehicles that a larger amount of fruit damage was found for lightly loaded trucks and that the worst damage occurred over or behind the rear axle and was exacerbated by a stiff suspension.

5.

Conclusions

The DEM simulations clearly demonstrate how the suspension type, the truck load, the driving speed and the bulk bin position affect apple bruising caused by the passage of a truck on a speed bump. For fully loaded trucks no commercially signicant bruising is predicted for driving speeds between 20 km h1 and 50 km h1 for apple bulk bins positioned 2 m in front the rear axle and on top of the rear axle. However, driving at speeds between 25 km h1 and 35 km h1 must still

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be avoided because these speeds were predicted to cause considerable bruising for apples in bulk bins at 2 m behind the rear axle. For light and half-loaded trucks the bruising was much more pronounced with up to 33 times more bruising for lightly loaded trucks compared to fully loaded trucks. With driving speeds below 25 km h1, however, commercial bruising was also avoided for these truck loads. The results clearly demonstrate how soft suspension types considerably reduce the amount of damage, even up to 99% when compared to stiff suspensions for bulk bins behind the rear axle. For lightly loaded trucks and half or fully loaded trucks, the simulations predicted 50% and 5% less bruising, respectively, for bulk bins in front of the rear axle compared to bulk bins behind the rear axle.

Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the Research fund of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Scientic Research Fund Flanders (FWO).

references

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