## 1 Introduction  
In developing countries, about 40% of foodstuffs perish after being harvested, and over one-fifth of food becomes unfit for human consumption during transportation and distribution [1]. Furthermore, the monetary and physical depletion of fruits and vegetables contributes the most waste in agriculture and foodstuffs annually [2]. Damage to fresh produce that occurs during transportation and handling (even if refrigerated) results in food losses at the consumer end due to reductions in the supply chain [3,4]. Pear fruits are considered one of the most perishable agricultural products. Pears are sensitive to inappropriate conditions during harvesting, transportation, and reloading. Various mechanical damages, such as cuts, punctures, splits, abrasions, and bruises [5], can reduce the quality, shelf-life, and market value of fresh produce. Bruises are the most common type of mechanical damage that contributes to fruit quality reduction and post-harvest losses [6]. Bruise damage is a subcutaneous tissue failure without fruit skin rupture, where damaged spots are indicated by discoloration of injured tissues [7]. Bruising usually occurs due to excessive compression and impact forces throughout the post-harvest supply chain [8]. Therefore, there is a strong need to design optimal harvesting processing systems and energy-absorbing packaging structures to extend the shelf life and maintain the good quality of the fruit [9]. Utilizing additive manufacturing techniques has been shown to have good energy-absorbing properties, as complex shapes can be relatively easier to manufacture, and different properties can be combined using a combination of polymer types such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) [10]. Furthermore, corrugated cardboard has been widely adopted for fruit and vegetable packaging thanks to its biodegradability and quick and easy solutions [11]. Thus, this work aims to investigate different package structures and different impact materials that have the potential to absorb the energy of the fruit when it falls in order to protect the fruit from mechanical damage and extend its shelf life. During the design stage of the structure, the energy absorption should be maximized so that energy is transferred to the package instead of the fruit. Various auxetic geometric structure designs can be adopted, such as arrowhead, anti-tetra chiral, re-entrant, and honeycomb, as investigated by [PERSON] et al. [12]. In this paper, investigations and simulations of a honeycomb structure will be conducted. FEA has proved its efficiency in investigating the impact of mechanical loading, compression, and drop impacts on fruits and vegetables, providing new insights for food package designers on the performance of crop handling techniques and processes [13; 14]. In fruit stress analysis, finite element mechanical modeling is the process of predicting and simulating mechanical responses while loading the fruit [13]. The use of FEA for fruit simulation allows non-destructive analysis, investigating multiple scenarios under different boundary conditions. In contrast, physical testing is costly and time-consuming. It destroys the fruits and limits the ability to evaluate different scenarios with the same fruit sample. FEA is a time- and cost-effective tool that serves to assist researchers and practitioners in gaining valuable insights on bruise detection for fresh produce. The scope of the current work is to investigate the bruise susceptibility of the simulated pear fruit FE model subject to impact loading using explicit dynamics simulations with non-linear finite element analysis. The fruit drop impact is investigated using different impact platform materials, different structures, and different impact heights. Several works have been conducted in the line of fresh produce bruising detection under fall and impact loading.