Document Type : Full Research Paper

Authors

• Mohammad Aboonajmi ¹
• Asadollah Akram ²
• Seyed Kamaloddin Setarehdan ³
• Ali Rajabipour ⁴

¹ Ph.D Graduated, School of Biosystem Engineering, University of Tehran

² Associated Professor, School of Biosystem Engineering, University of Tehran

³ Assistance Professor, Control and Intelligent Processing Centre of Excellence, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran

⁴ Assistance Professor, School of Biosystem Engineering, University of Tehran

Abstract

Ultrasound is a rapidly growing tool in the field of research, which shows an increasing use in the food industry for both analysis and modification of food products. Quality assessment of agricultural material has an important role in modern agriculture. This study demonstrates the possibility of non-destructive prediction of the main quality indices of the commercial eggs by processing a short ultrasound burst passing through the egg material and calculating the ultrasound phase velocity. For this purpose a set of three hundred samples of commercial eggs (Boris Brown, 33 weeks age) from the first day of egg lying were purchased from a farm and classified in two groups. The first group was kept in the room temperature (22-25°C) while the second group was kept within the refrigerator (4-5°C). 25 eggs were picked every week from each groups (room and refrigerator) were first subjected to the nondestructive ultrasound test at room temperature. Each day, the ultrasound signal is recorded from the eggs first. Then, immediately after that, the air cell, the thick albumen heights, the Haugh unit and the yolk index of the eggs were also determined destructively for comparison purposes. Significant differences at 5% level between the means of the destructive analysis at different days of storage of the eggs were found using ANOVA. Both the Haugh unit and yolk index decreased by time over 5 weeks in storage at room and refrigerator while the air cell height increased. The lower is the Haugh unit for the eggs in the refrigerator the lower is the phase velocity (1573 m/s at first day compared to 1540 m/s after 3 weeks). Similar changes of the phase velocity are found for the eggs in the room temperature (1571 m/s at first day compared to 1514 m/s after 3 weeks).

Keywords

• Ndt Test
• Ultrasound Wave
• Quality Assessment
• Commercial Egg
• Phase Velocity

Main Subjects

• Medical Elastography
• Biomedical Image Processing / Medical Image Processing