Rheology compressive measurements

Some basic food analytical methods such as determination of °brix, pH, titratable acidity, total proteins and total lipids are basic to food analysis and grounded in procedures which have had wide-spread acceptance for a long time. Others such as analysis of cell-wall polysaccharides, analysis of aroma volatiles, and compressive measurement of solids and semi-solids, require use of advanced chemical and physical methods and sophisticated instrumentation. In organizing the Handbook of Food Analytical Chemistry we chose to categorize on a disciplinary rather than a commodity basis. Included are chapters on water, proteins, enzymes, lipids, carbohydrates, colors, flavors texture/ rheology and bioactive food components. We have made an effort to select methods that are applicable to all commodities. However, it is impossible to address the unique and special criteria required for analysis of all commodities and all processed forms. There are several professional and trade organizations which focus on their specific commodities, e.g., cereals, wines, lipids, fisheries, and meats. Their methods manuals and professional journals should be consulted, particularly for specialized, commodity-specific analyses. 

Interfacial rheological parameters can be determined in various ways. Preferably experiments should be carried out either in pure dilation or in pure shear but in practice it is difficult to avoid interference between these two. All techniques have in common that the area is in some fashion deformed (l.e. sheared, compressed or dilated) and the rheological response measured. Interpretation requires accounting for momentum transport which can take place in the monolayer itself or by transfer to (or from) the adjacent bulk phases. 

De Man (1983) has reviewed this property of fats. Consistency is defined as (1) an ill-defined and subjectively assessable characteristic of a material that depends on the complex stress-flow relation or as (2) the property by which a material resists change of shape. Spreadabil-ity, a term used in relation to consistency, is the force required to spread the fat with a knife. The definition is similar to that for hardness the resistance of the surface of a body to deformation. The most widely used simple compression test in North America is the cone penetrometer method (AOCS Method Cc 16-60, 1960). More sophisticated rheological procedures are also available. Efforts have been made to calibrate instrumental tests with sensory response. With the cone penetrometer method, penetration depth is used as a measure of firmness. Hayakawa and De Man (1982) studied the hardness of fractions obtained by crystallization of milk fat. Hardness values obtained with a constant speed penetrometer reflected trends in their TG composition and solid fat content. 

The sample is subjected to compression by moving the crosshead downwards at a constant speed. The sample is extruded from between the two discs, undergoing elongational or biaxial flow the sample is stretched radially and azimuthally as it flows outwards between the approaching discs. Lubrication ensures that shear flow cannot occur. Elongational viscosity is calculated directly from the measured force-distance data, disc radius and crosshead speed no rheological model is required (Campanella and Peleg, 2002). 

The measurement of rheological properties at the surface of a solution or the interface between a solution and, for example, a biological film is called surface or interfacial rheology. In this technique also, experiments are performed either in tension, compression or shear, and phenomena observed in bulk rheology such as flow and viscoelasticity are also observable. An introduction to the techniques available and some key findings are discussed by Warburton. ... 

Rheological behaviour of refractories at high temperatures can be well illustrated by the dependence of deformation or flow rate on time under constant load. This relationship is plotted in Fig. 207, where deformation is represented by the full curve and the flow rate by the dashed curve. The measurement was carried out on a fireclay brick under a compressive load of 0.02 MPa at 1250 °C. The curve peak... 

FIGURE 10.33 Principles of interfacial rheological measurements, (a) In shear. A thin disc (D) is at an O-W interface and is made to rotate (or oscillate) the torque on the disc can be measured, e.g., via a torsion wire (T). (b) In expansion/compression. Barriers (B) at an O-W interface are moved, thereby increasing or decreasing the interfacial area between them the interfacial tension is measured by means of a Wilhelmy plate (P). Both kinds of measurement can also be made at A-W and A-O surfaces. 

Many experiments have been proposed for measuring the interfacial shear viscosity and elasticity and interfacial dilatational viscosity and elasticity at gas/liquid and liquid/ liquid interfaces [22]. Interfacial shear viscosities of different oil/aqueous systems have been studied worldwide. Some experimental results indicate that low interfacial shear viscosities do not necessarily imply that an emulsion will be unstable [23]. The dilatational rheology is based on area changes due to an expansion or compression of a fluid surface and stress relaxation experiments. The experiment results show that the interfacial dilatational properties can be much higher than the interfacial shear properties for the same system [15,24-27]. This makes researchers believe that interfacial dilatational viscosity and elasticity may have a better relationship with the stability of the emulsion than with interfacial shear properties. 

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