Food characteristics based on ultrasound for quality assurance

Food comprises a very diverse range of materials, generally they are complex, very variable in composition and character, ultrasound is well suited to the study of food materials, thus help a lot in quality assurance in food industry.;An ultrasonic foreign body detector prototype based on the ultrasound pulse/echo method was used in beverages for quality control. The prototype is composed of a single pulse/echo transducer, a water jet nozzle and an x-y table; window-moving technique is used as a signal processing method. The FBs are detected by comparison the pressure ratio values between the echo from the container outer surface (front face) and that from inner surface (back face).;The object-oriented graphical programming language, LabVIEW 5.0, was used to control an ultrasonic scanning system composed of an ultrasound transducer, an x-y table and a computer for foreign body (FB) detection inside beverages packed in glass containers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).