Structural and mechanical property characterization of leafy vegetables

• Main Author: Muhammad Shahrizan Kamis
• Other Authors: Huang Changjin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Aeronautical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145521
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Leafy vegetables are an important food resource for human nutrition and essential components in urban farming. There has been much research on the impact of external environmental factors, such as light, temperature, and soil quality, on the growth and nutritional quality of vegetable leaves. However, there has been a lack of study on analyzing the mechanical properties of plant leaves and how these properties correlate with their sensory textures. The aim of this project is to characterize and compare the mechanical behaviours between different sections of old and young leaves from the Coral Lettuce. In this study, we perform both tensile and compression tests to interrogate the mechanical behaviour of coral lettuce leaves under tensile and compressive stress. Based on the stress-strain curves, we are able to determine multiple mechanical properties, including Young’s Modulus, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, and strain to failure.