The protective and preservative role of apple skin in maintaining the integrity of the fruit is well-known, with its mechanical behaviour playing a pivotal role in determining fruit storage capacity. This study employs a combination of experimental and numerical methodologies, specifically utilising the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. A specially devised inverse strategy is applied to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of apple skin under uniaxial tensile loading. Three apple cultivars were tested in this work: Malus domestica Starking Delicious, Malus pumila Rennet, and Malus domestica Golden Delicious. Stress-strain curves were reconstructed, revealing distinct variations in the mechanical responses among these cultivars. Yeoh's hyperelastic model was fitted to the experimental data to identify the coefficients capable of reproducing the non-linear deformation. The results suggest that apple skin varies significantly in composition and structure among the tested cultivars, as evidenced by differences in elastic properties and non-linear behaviour. These differences can significantly affect how fruit is handled, stored, and transported. Thus, the insights resulting from this research enable the development of mathematical models based on the mechanical behaviour of apple tissue, constituting important data for improvements in the economics of the agri-food industry.
Keywords: apple skin; digital image correlation; finite element analysis; hyperelasticity; uniaxial tensile loading.