Abstract
Fruit quality is a crucial factor in affecting shelf-life and purchase choice for customers. Protecting the quality of cantaloupe fruits in the chain from harvest to marketing is a very important process. The objective of this study was to investigate the dynamic characteristics of cantaloupe fruit during excitation, to investigate the effect of vibration strength on the mechanical characteristics of cantaloupe fruit, and to show the effects of this strength on the mechanical damage of cantaloupe. Experiments were performed to measure the dynamic behavior of cantaloupe fruit during transportation and to evaluate the dynamic behavior of the packaging and the damage to the cantaloupes due to transient vibration during transportation. The results show that using the paper pulp tray packing method reduces cantaloupe damage and improves their quality during harvest and post-harvest processes. The range of resonance frequencies is important for the transporting of cantaloupes; a higher starting resonance is an indication of a stiffer cantaloupe bottom, and the paper pulp tray shifts the resonance frequency when compared to volume packing methods. Another interesting observation in this study is that a fruit with a high internal damping capacity is not as injured by exciting vibrations as a fruit with a low damping capacity, even if its natural frequency falls within the range of excitation.