Development of a new software application for supporting research of thermo-mechanical behavior of agri-food and forest products

Abstract

Development of applications and services conforming to recent standards and perspectives of ICT is important for increasing productivity in agri-food and forestry sectors to deliver desired quantities of safe and quality products to end-users. Therefore a field of study combining two national curricula: informatics and agricultural engineering was developed by the Department of Applied Informatics of the Poznan University of Life Sciences. The scope of studies corresponds to the area of research conducted in the Department and focuses on development of Web-based advisory systems for agriculture and information systems supporting research in the agri-bio-engineering. In the paper two exemplary systems are presented. They support analysis of thermo-mechanical behavior of agri-food and forest products subjected to heating, cooling, drying and storing operations. Development of the systems resulted in a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency of estimating properties of biomaterials and in more accurate predictions of the processes investigated.