Physics of fruit and vegetable tissue in postharvest handling.

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Project objective

Two research groups, intensively collaborating in the Department of Agro-Engineering and -Economics of the Catholic University Leuven (Belgium) jointly offer a training site for doctoral fellows in the area of post harvest technologies : the Laboratory for Agro-Machinery and -Processing and the Laboratory of Post harvest Technology. These research groups carry out applied and basic research in the area of post harvest physiology, technology and quality of fruits and vegetables:- basic research on techniques for non-destructive testing of fruit quality (e.g. acoustic impulse response, NIR)- analysis and modelling of transport phenomena (e.g. heat and mass transfer, gas diffusion, moisture transport)- basic research on microscopic and macroscopic physical properties of fruit Both groups are experienced in mathematical modelling and use numerical techniques such as the finite element method to model fruit quality changes. The Agro-Machinery research group has a complementary experience in vibration analysis and simulation with respect to vibration damage. The Marie Curie fellows will have the opportunity to be trained in each of those research areas, and will have access to an advanced research infrastructure with several state of the art experimental devices for measuring optical and macro- and microscopic physical properties of fruits. They will participate in advanced finite element analysis and modelling of vegetative tissue behaviour under mechanical loading, based on the results of experiments on a macro- and microscopic level. They will have the opportunity to attend one or more lecture modules of the complementary and advanced studies in post harvest and food preservation engineering, which is at doctoral level. Fellows should hold a master diploma of mechanical, electronic or agricultural engineering, biology, physics or food science and technology.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · LEUVENCoordinatorBelgium

Links

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