Mechanical properties of rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis l.) stalks

Rosemary is an aromatic herb exported by Colombia. It is a perennial aromatic bush that can grow up to 2 m high. Its leaves are narrow, thin, shiny and strongly scented; the stems are woody and resinous, branched and slightly bitter. For harvesting, it should be cut manually, plant by plant, however...

Full description

Autores:
Castillo, Bernardo
Arévalo, César Andrés
Londoño, Maria Teresa
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2013
Institución:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Repositorio:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Idioma:
spa
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.unal.edu.co:unal/70669
Acceso en línea:
https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/70669
http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/35139/
Palabra clave:
rheology
uniaxial compression
tension
postharvest
handling
aromatic herbs.
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional
Description
Summary:Rosemary is an aromatic herb exported by Colombia. It is a perennial aromatic bush that can grow up to 2 m high. Its leaves are narrow, thin, shiny and strongly scented; the stems are woody and resinous, branched and slightly bitter. For harvesting, it should be cut manually, plant by plant, however product damage may occur during this process as the collector is pushing the branches to make the cut or when cut stems are placed in transport baskets. Tests were carried out on romero stalks to investigate the physical and rheological characteristics in order to make recommendations for harvest and post-harvest operations and to find design parameters for harvesting tools. The following rheological tests were performed: unidirectional compression, cutting, bending and tension of the bunches of stems, the manipulated structures. It was found that the compression forces that result in unrecoverable deformations are really small, approximately 2 N. The cutting force needed to fracture the bundle at the point of harvest is 30 to 50 N on average, depending on whether it is in the middle or at the base. The mechanical behavior of rosemary leaves corresponds to a viscoelastic, anisotropic and highly variable material.