Towards the understanding of collapse mechanisms and mechanical behaviour of selected plant-based food materials during preservation and processing.

Understanding the collapse mechanisms and mechanical behaviours of plant-based food (PBF) materials is the key to select or modify their harvesting and post-harvesting processes (transportation, packaging, preservation and storage). However, there is a paucity of research on collapse mechanisms and their influences on mechanical properties of PBF materials. This study investigates the mechanical properties and collapse mechanisms of eight different PBF materials for both small and large deformations under quasi-static compression loading. High-resolution images of deformed and undeformed PBF materials are used to explore the evolution of deformation. The variation in stress-strain responses is thoroughly analyzed to uncover the intricate deformation and collapse processes. Digital image correlation (DIC) technique is employed to explore the strain distribution at small deformation. Our findings reveal that the mechanical properties of the PBFs vary significantly because of their density and the nature of constituent tissues. Notably, high strength PBFs exhibit a high or moderate degree of homogeneity in strain distribution, and low strength PBFs exhibit strain localization. Although the deformation and collapse mechanisms, and mechanical properties vary significantly among the PBF materials, our findings reveal few clusters of the PBFs that show similar behaviour. This research paves a new way to predict the behaviour of new PBFs using the common characteristics of a cluster with structure-property predictive models in complex processing conditions. The insights gained from this study are crucial for assessing risk and tuning the automated/mechanized PBF processing system design. These advancements can lead to optimized food processing systems while reducing energy consumption.