Investigation on physical and mechanical behavior of Cherry Plum fruit and analysis of its physical properties using ANN and regression models

Determination of physical and mechanical properties of agricultural and horticultural crops is one of the most important parameters in design and manufacture of the operation machines. Determination of the effect of static and dynamic forces on Cherry Plum fruit during storage and transportation processes is very necessary for engineering. In this study, the physical properties of the Cherry Plum (including dimensional parameters and weight) and mechanical properties (including pressure test, punch test, and cyclic test) were measured at two levels of big and small sizes. The regression and ANN models based on physical properties data were defined and used to estimate the weight and volume of the fruits. The ANN model was the best model for estimating the fruit volume with 0.96 regression coefficient but it didn’t have a acceptable performance in estimating the fruits’ weight. The parameters of force and displacement, maximum stress at the breaking point, the elastic modulus in Hertz methods and Bosensky theory, the crust and mantle punch forces, the minimum stress based on Bosinskio theory, the distribution of vertical, horizontal and shear stresses in depth and surface in the failure point and etc were calculated based on the data of the mechanical properties. The results showed that due to the differences in the thickness of the mantle, the force absorption capacity in the big fruits was larger than the small ones. The results of comparison between the convex jaw and flat jaw in the compression tests showed that the fruits placed on the floor were more exposed to damage. The behavior of the stress distribution at the failure point showed that the horizontal stress would dictate the rupture in the fruits.