Chapter 9: Ultrasonic Tomography Approach for Detecting Foreign Objects in Milk Packaging: A Simulation Study Check Access

Contaminant issues must be avoided by food and beverages (F&B) industries as these would have a negative impact on their product and brand. There are three types of food and beverage contaminants: biological, chemical, and physical hazards. The physical hazards commonly occur in the F&B manufacturing industries. However, the current application of solid contamination detectors such as X-ray machines and metal detectors involves hazardous radiation. Therefore, this research aims to analyze a non-invasive and non-intrusive tomography technique to detect the foreign objects without affecting the original form of the food. This research aims to perform several simulations to detect the existence of foreign objects in milk packaging using ultrasonic tomography approach via COMSOL Multiphysics software. This chapter presents a discussion on the conceptual modeling of ultrasonic tomography and the analysis of its voltage output, time arrival, wave amplitude and acoustic pressure. Several simulations were modeled and investigated using different foreign objects such as metal, plastic, and hair. Different sizes of foreign object were deliberately put inside the packaging in different positions. The results showed that the proposed conceptual modeling can distinguish between the existence of various sorts of foreign materials with a size range between 1 mm to 5 mm.