Prediction of Poultry Egg Freshness Using Ultrasound

Abstract

A non-destructive ultrasound based method was used to develop a model for poultry egg freshness assessment. The proposed model can predict the Haugh unit, albumen thickness, air-cell height, and a number of other egg quality parameters by computing the ultrasound phase velocity within the egg material. For this purpose, the effect of the storage time on the ultrasound phase velocity within the poultry eggs together with the peak values of the transmitted ultrasound signals in the time and frequency domains were considered as indicators of egg freshness. Tests were conducted on eggs that were stored for five weeks in different storage conditions. The computed parameters were used to develop different models to predict the number of storage days for the egg samples. The results showed that the amplitude of the main peaks of the ultrasound signal in the time domain increased by the number of storage days. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the mean values of the phase velocities obtained at different times during the storage period. Comparing the results obtained for the eggs kept at the room temperature to those refrigerated showed that these variations were more significant for the eggs kept at room temperature.