Nondestructive investigating firmness of tuber agricultural products during storage using sound and compression tests

Application of traditional methods for the separation and sorting of healthy products from defective is a tedious and laborious, which needs fast and low cost non-destructive diagnostic system to overcome this problem. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the internal quality of the tuber agricultural product (potato, Banba variety) with non-destructive sound test during the storage duration of 44 days with 78% moisture content. In order to determine the internal quality of the product during shelf life storage, sound and pressure test (as a control) were used. The results showed that the acoustic test has the ability to determine the quality of potato during the storage period. Also the effect of two independent variables of storage time and sample mass was compared on the bio-yield force (pressure test) and the firmness index using acoustic test. The results of this research revealed that the storage duration and mass of samples were significant at 1% probability level on quality parameters. In this study, the correlation coefficient between the firmness index and bio-yield force and the modulus of elasticity was 66% and 63%, respectively. The overal results of this research revealed sound test is capable for diagnostic internal quality of potato during 44 days of storage.