A research on the determination of aerodinamic sorting possibilities of 'balo' bell pepper variety

In this research, it was aimed to determine the properties of 'Balo' Bell pepper, a critical product to export after tomato in our country, in respect of aerodynamic sorting and how much class pepper can be sorted according to these properties. This study aimed to design a sorting mechanism. Experiments were conducted in two stages. The first stage consists of three parts. In the first part, the physical properties of 'Balo' bell pepper, and in the second part, the individual and bulk aerodynamic characteristics in air flow forming the fluidized bed environment of the material were determined. In the third part, the parameters of mechanical damage during the processing of the product were determined. In the second stage of work, according to the aerodynamic properties, the classification mechanism was made to classify bell pepper and its success and power consumption were determined. As a result of the experiment, the physical properties of the product length, width and thickness value as the harvest period in October, with 52.23 in 97.57 mm, in February during the harvest, with 63.29 and 96.80 mm in the period of June harvest is between 36.60 and 87.57 mm was determined to change. Since the physical properties determined according to three different harvest times showed significant differences, the dimensions of the classification design were adjusted by taking into account these values. For the mechanical properties of the product, the highest breaking force, breaking strength, breaking energy were found to be 40.11 N, 0.80 MPa and 478.70 Nmm, respectively in February pepper harvest. The lowest breaking force, the breaking strength and energy were found to be 10.20 N, 0.20 MPa and 84.33 Nmm, respectively in October peppers harvest. According to variance analysis results, the some mechanical properties of the product, depending on three harvest times, were determined to be significant at the 5% and 1% levels and some of them are not significant According to the mechanical properties of bell pepper for different harvest times, the classification mechanism was made. The terminal velocity of 'Balo' bell pepper varied from 17.24 m/s to 31.21 m/s. Terminal velocity of products were found concentrated in the 4 different speed groups of 16–19, 20–23, 24–27 and 28–32 m/s. While the terminal velocity, drag coefficient and drag force of the aerodynamic features were significant in the different harvest periods at 1% level of statistical significance as a result of the variance analysis. Reynolds number of products was statistically significant at the 5% level. The resulting pressure drop values were statistically insignificant for the harvest periods The highest value of classification activity was found to be 96.71 % at the 20 cm/12 cm of product outlet and 1.2 m/s of band speed. The lowest classification activity was found to be 77.21 % in the 40 cm/12cm of product outlet and 0.2 m/s of band speed. The highest classification sensitivity was obtained from the 20 cm/12 cm of cover opening and 0.7 m/s of feed velocity. Be analyzed at the aerodynamic characteristics of the product in stack, the stack depth increases at the each air velocity, almost a linear increase in pressure drop was observed. This situation stems from more material and air encountered with the increase of the stack depth and hence in the increase of the friction field. With the increase in the diameter of the product, the stack resistance to air flow has decreased. This decrease can be explained with the increase of the product diameter and the volume of the stack space. The terminal velocity of 'Balo' bell pepper was found to vary within wide limits. This change was found to show a homogeneous distribution as a result of the experiment replications in the product. 'Balo' bell pepper has been classified into three different classes. The developed prototype machine is designed according to fixed and laboratory conditions KEY WORDS: Post-Harvest, Crop Handling, Biological Material, Sorting, Balo, Green Pepper