Physical Properties of Barhi dates at khalal stage, study area (Baghdad city)

Abstract

In this research, the physical properties of l Barhi dates at khalal stage such as mass, length, width, thickness, geometric and arithmetic mean diameter, aspect ratio, true volume, apparent volume, sphericity, surface area, true density, bulk density, and porosity were studies. These physical properties for fruits are useful in packaging food, equipment design, storage, handling, and quality assessment for the fruits where the consumers often chooses the fruits on the basis of their inclusion , size, and rest of other physical properties. The results showed that these properties reached 15.07g, 32.21 mm, 26mm, 23.05mm, 26.81mm, 27.08mm, 71.92%, 14.57cm2 , 8.50 cm2 , 83.43%, 22.60 cm2 (McCabe) , 20.01 cm2 (Jean& Ball), 1.03 g. cm-3, 0.47 g. cm-3, 54.40%, respectively. The 50% of length values ranging from 31.00- 32.00mm, 90% of width values from 26.00-26.20 mm, 70% of thickness values from 23.00-23.17mm and, 75% of mass values from 14.95-16.15mm. The results showed the high relation was between the length and sphericity for fruits while not statistically significant between length and width and between geometric and arithmetic mean diameter. Colour components for fruits (L*, b* and a*) were 53.81, 41.66, 4.51, respectively. Moreover, the coefficient of friction at using, plywood, glass and galvanized iron steel was 0.35, 0.24 and 0.30.