IMPACT COUNTER FOR FRUITS DURING TRANSPORTATION

Fruits and vegetables sustain mechanical damage from impacts and vibra tions during transportation. To measure the degree of impacts and vibr ations, an impact counting device was developed, which can be packed w ith fruits in a corrugated cardboard box and transported. Between the transportation, the apparatus counts the number of impacts above the t hreshold acceleration in each of triaxial directions. The impact count er consists of a sphere for detecting the acceleration and a box with an electronic circuit. The sphere is made of acrylic resin and contain s a triaxial piezoelectric accelerometer.