Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet

Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Knife force differences when cutting meat at different temperatures
KTH, Ergonomi.
KTH, Ergonomi.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7386-0103
Jönköping University, School of Engineering, JTH. Research area Industrial Production.
(Liberty Mutual Reseach Institute, Boston, USA)
2012 (English)In: NES2012: Ergonomics for Sustainability and Growth / [ed] Ann-Beth Antonsson, Kjerstin Vogel, Göran M Hägg, Stockholm: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2012Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Introduction

Meat cutters in abattoirs is a group with high risks for musculoskeletal disorders. A major reason for this is that they exert high hand forces over a great part of the day when cutting meat. Though meat is refrigerated due to hygienic demands, meat temperature can vary. Meat cutters have claimed that knife forces increase with lower temperatures. This study was performed to find out what effects the meat temperature has on cutting forces. In addition, the same issue was addressed for pure fat.

Method

To be able to do cuts in meat under controlled conditions while measuring cutting forces, a machine, Anago KST Sharpness Analyzer, was used. The machine normally runs a knife at constant speed through a standardized textile ribbon while the force exerted on the ribbon is recorded over time. For this investigation, the ribbon was replaced by a wooden fixture with a 10 mm wide slot where the knife could pass and where meat samples could be fixed.Meat obtained from hind loin and fat tissue of pork was cut into 5 cm long, 4 cm wide and 2 cm thick samples. The meat fibre orientation was aligned with the long axis of the sample. When fixated in the fixture and the machine was started, the knife made a 4 cm long cut through 2 cm thick meat or fat.One hundred and forty four samples of meat and as many of fat were collected and put overnight in one of three refrigerators with temperatures 2, 7 and 12 °C, 48 in each. Well sharpened standard knifes were used for the tests. The knife was changed after 24 cuts. During the procedure samples were taken directly from the refrigerator and put into the fixture and tested immediately. The sample order was generally 2, 7, 12 °C to avoid systematic effects of a gradually blunter knife.

Results

There were no significant differences in knife forces at the three meat temperatures. The forces for fat were in average about three times higher than the meat forces. There was no significant difference between forces in fat at 7 and 12 °C. However there was a strongly significant difference between these two groups and the 2 °C fat group. The force was about 30% higher compared to the forces at 7 and 12 °C in fat.

Conclusion

In the range 2-12 °C there are no differences in meat. For fat there are no differences in the range 7-12 °C while the force increases about 30% when going from 7 to 2 °C.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2012.
Keywords [en]
Abattoir work, deboner, repetitive work, MSD
National Category
Medical Ergonomics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-26831Local ID: JTHIndustriellISISBN: 978-91-637-1149-7 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-26831DiVA, id: diva2:815032
Conference
NES2012 Ergonomics for Sustainability and Growth
Projects
STAR, styckarnas arbetssituationAvailable from: 2015-05-29 Created: 2015-05-29 Last updated: 2018-09-13Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(215 kB)212 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 215 kBChecksum SHA-512
1fca91bb95e130e1f3041133600a568a098f78ec718fef69229367485f02c07beccfc56108d2d88f6974847b10ba12e7056f797e5c4a88938d4bf59a1110b359
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

NES2012

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Vogel, KjerstinKarltun, Johan
By organisation
JTH. Research area Industrial Production
Medical Ergonomics

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 212 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 807 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf