Mechanical Properties of Cucumber under Bending Force

휨하중(荷重)을 받는 오이의 역학적(力學的) 특성(特性)

Cucumbers being living biological materials are generally vulnerable to external forces, especially, bending force during the processes, because they have usually longish shape. Understanding the mechanical and viscoelastic properties of cucumber is important to analyze various characteristics which might be helpful in determining design parameters for the processing equipment such as sorting, packaging and transporting machine. The objectives of this study were to determine ultimate bending strength, deflections, and hysteresis losses for the cucumbers from the bending tests. Within the range of loading rate from 20 to 100mm/min, the ultimate bending strength of the cucumber samples were 525-630kPa at the Gyeousalicheongjang and the Baekdadagi, and 476~618kPa at the Cheongjangmadi, respectively, but the ultimate bending deflection ratio of the Cheongjangmadi showed the highest value among the tested samples. The effect of loading rate on the physical properties of the cucumber was relatively significant, all considered physical properties and degree of elasticity of the cucumber increased with the loading rate, but the hysteresis loss decreased with it.