Modelling heat and mass transfer in bread baking with mechanical deformation

Modelling Volume Change and Deformation in Food Products/Processes: An Overview

Volume change and large deformation occur in different solid and semi-solid foods during processing, e.g., shrinkage of fruits and vegetables during drying and of meat during cooking, swelling of grains during hydration, and expansion of dough during baking and of snacks during extrusion and puffing. In addition, food is broken down during oral processing. Such phenomena are the result of complex and dynamic relationships between composition and structure of foods, and driving forces established by processes and operating conditions. In particular, water plays a key role as plasticizer, strongly influencing the state of amorphous materials via the glass transition and, thus, their mechanical properties. Therefore, it is important to improve the understanding about these complex phenomena and to develop useful prediction tools. For this aim, different modelling approaches have been applied in the food engineering field. The objective of this article is to provide a general (non-systematic) review of recent (2005-2021) and relevant works regarding the modelling and simulation of volume change and large deformation in various food products/processes. Empirical- and physics-based models are considered, as well as different driving forces for deformation, in order to identify common bottlenecks and challenges in food engineering applications.

Multiscale analysis of structure development in expanded starch snacks

In this paper we perform a multiscale analysis of the food structuring process of the expansion of starchy snack foods like keropok, which obtains a solid foam structure. In particular, we want to investigate the validity of the hypothesis of Kokini and coworkers, that expansion is optimal at the moisture content, where the glass transition and the boiling line intersect. In our analysis we make use of several tools, (1) time scale analysis from the field of physical transport phenomena, (2) the scale separation map (SSM) developed within a multiscale simulation framework of complex automata, (3) the supplemented state diagram (SSD), depicting phase transition and glass transition lines, and (4) a multiscale simulation model for the bubble expansion. Results of the time scale analysis are plotted in the SSD, and give insight into the dominant physical processes involved in expansion. Furthermore, the results of the time scale analysis are used to construct the SSM, which has aided us in the construction of the multiscale simulation model. Simulation results are plotted in the SSD. This clearly shows that the hypothesis of Kokini is qualitatively true, but has to be refined. Our results show that bubble expansion is optimal for moisture content, where the boiling line for gas pressure of 4 bars intersects the isoviscosity line of the critical viscosity 10(6) Pa.s, which runs parallel to the glass transition line.