Describing the firmness, springiness and rubberiness of food gels using fractional calculus. Part II: Measurements on semi-hard cheese

We use the framework of fractional calculus to quantify the linear viscoelastic properties of full-fat, low-fat, and zero-fat, semi-hard cheeses over a range of temperatures and water/protein ratios. These fractional constitutive models correctly predict the time-dependence and interrelation of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Faber, T.J., Jaishankar, Aditya, McKinley, Gareth H
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113213
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8323-2779
Description
Summary:We use the framework of fractional calculus to quantify the linear viscoelastic properties of full-fat, low-fat, and zero-fat, semi-hard cheeses over a range of temperatures and water/protein ratios. These fractional constitutive models correctly predict the time-dependence and interrelation of the firmness, springiness, and rubberiness of these emulsion-filled hydrocolloidal gels. Our equations for the firmness F, springiness S, and rubberiness R, also correctly predict the effect of changing the magnitude or time-scale of the stress loading on the material even in the case of irreversible flow events, when cheese progressively transitions from a solid to a liquid. Finally we show how our FSR-equations can be used in a texture engineering context; they provide rational guidance to product reformulation studies and allow for extrapolation of a firmness measurement to practical situations in which the gel is subjected to prolonged creep loading. Keywords Rational reformulation Food gels Structure-texture engineering Constitutive model Fractional calculus Scott Blair