Food Research International 43 (2010) 183–186

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Food Research International

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodres

Tribological measurements of foods using a rheometer

S.M. Goh *, P. Versluis, I.A.M. Appelqvist 1, L. Bialek
Unilever Food and Health Research Institute, Olivier van Noortlaan 120, PO Box 114, 3130 AC Vlaardingen, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The oral processing of foods occurs under a range of mechanical conditions, from bulk deformation and
Received 10 May 2009 flow to confined, thin film sliding and shearing. Recently, there has been an impetus in studying the lubri-
Accepted 22 September 2009 cation and breakdown behaviour of food hydrocolloids and emulsions under confined sliding conditions
to better mimic in-mouth processes. Thus, the aim of the current work was to investigate a new method
for measuring the tribological properties of food materials when one or both contacting surfaces are soft.
Keywords: For this purpose, a tribology cell was made that can be attached to a rheometer. This paper presents early
Lubrication
validation work of the technique using Newtonian fluids of different viscosities. The friction data show
Foods
Rheometer
that different regimes of lubrication could be captured using solutions with different viscosities, suggest-
Friction ing the promise of the system for measuring lubrication properties under a range of speed and normal
load conditions.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction measurement systems such as the ‘‘Mini traction machine” (PCS

During eating, the flavour release as well as the mouthfeel char-
acteristics are related to the bulk rheology and thin-film rheology
behaviour of the food. The behaviour of the food when squeezed
and sheared between the moving surfaces of the tongue and the
palate can be characterised through tribological tests. As informa-
tion from tribological measurements has been shown to provide a
better understanding of the relationship between food structure,
texture and mouthfeel (Malone, Appelqvist, & Norton, 2003), inter-
ests in the tribological behaviour of foods have also increased in re-
cent years (e.g. Baier et al., 2008; Bongaerts, Rossetti, & Stokes,
2007; Bongaerts, Stokes, & Fourtouni, 2007; Cassin, Heinrich, &
Spikes, 2001; Chojnicka, de Jong, de Kruif, & Visschers, 2008; Dress-
elhuis, de Hoog, Cohen Stuart, & van Atken, 2008; Giasson, Israe-
lachvili, & Yoshizawa, 1997; Lee, Heuberger, Rousset, & Spencer,
2004; Luengo, Tsuchiya, Heuberger, & Israelachvili, 1997; Ranc,
Servais, Chauvy, Debaud, & Mischler, 2006; Vicente and co-work-
ers, 2005a, 2005b, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c; Zinoviadou, Janssen, &
de Jongh, 2008).
In these tribological studies of food systems, the experiments
were performed using either custom-made or commercially avail-
able tribological equipment. Typical equipment used includes sim-
ple pin-on-disk tribometers or more sophisticated traction
* Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Curtin University of Technology Sarawak, CDT 250, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Tel.: +60 85 443966; fax: +60 85 443837.
E-mail address: aaron.goh@curtin.edu.my (S.M. Goh).
1
Currently at Food Science Australia – North Ryde, Riverside Corporate Park,
11 Julius Avenue, North Ryde NSW 2113, Australia.
Instruments Ltd., London, UK). For very thin lubricant films, friction
has also been measured using the surface force apparatus and the
lateral atomic force microscope. Alternatively, tribology has also
been measured on a rheometer, as proposed by Kavehpour and
McKinley (2004). This method utilises the contact of a parallel
plate with an annular disk which is attached to a Peltier plate.
The proposed method is, however, not conducive for measure-
ments with materials that are soft or for surfaces that are rough
on a length scale similar to that of the tongue.
The idea of using the rheometer to perform tribological tests is
attractive as many food laboratories are equipped with rheometers
but not necessarily tribometers. The objective of the current study
was therefore to develop a tool that can be attached to the rheom-
eter to measure the lubrication properties of food hydrocolloid and
emulsion systems.
2. Experiments
2.1. Rheometer setup
The rheometer chosen for this investigation was the Physica
UDS 200 which is a controlled stress rheometer. The operation of
this rheometer was via the standard, supplied computer software
where the test protocol and the test conditions such as the sliding
speed or normal force could be selected.
2.2. Tribology cell
The tribological cell was designed and manufactured in-house
and is shown in Fig. 1. The normal load was balanced on two con-

0963-9969/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2009.09.024
184 S.M. Goh et al. / Food Research International 43 (2010) 183–186

rotated at a constant speed (v) of 10 mm/s for 1 min and the corn
syrup solutions were added to the system. The amount of sample
added was just sufficient to cover the disks. The hemispheres were
rotated for another 1 min before a speed ramp between 0.1 and
1000 rpm was applied.
The viscosities, g, of the corn syrup solutions at various shear
rates were measured using a 40 mm cone-and-plate configuration
on the AR1000 rheometer. All tests were performed at 20 °C.

2.5. Data analysis

During the tests, the angular speed (x) in rpm, total torque (T)
in Nmm and total normal load (W) in N were measured. From these
measurements, the following conversions were made:

 Sliding speed (m) in mm=s ¼ 2p60xl where l (=22 mm) is the

moment arm. Since only the hemispheres were moving and
the silicon disk was stationary, the corresponding fluid entrain-
ment speed, U, was equal to half of the sliding speed.
 Friction (F) in N ¼ Tl .
 Coefficient of friction ðlÞ ¼ WF .

Fig. 1. An image of the tribometer cell. 3. Results and discussion

From the viscosity measurements, the corn syrup solutions

exhibited Newtonian behaviour. The dependence of the viscosity
tact points at equi-distance from the axis of the rheometer shaft.
on the concentration of the corn syrup is shown in Fig. 2. These vis-
The upper contacting substrates were fastened to a single rigid
cosities were used in the analysis of the tribological data.
arm. This arm was, in turn, attached to the rheometer shaft via a
The measurements of the friction curves (coefficient of friction,
pivot. These upper substrates could be attached at various dis-
l, vs. sliding speed, m) for the samples at a total normal load of 3 N
tances from the axis of rotation. The bottom substrate consisted
are shown in Fig. 3a. At low speeds, there was considerable stick–
of a disk which was mechanically fastened to the bottom of the
slip behaviour where the relative movement was jerky. The stick–
cell. The system was completed by a PMMA housing which was
slip behaviour subsided as the speed increased which is in line
fastened to the Peltier plate.
with general experimental observations that stick–slip disappears
The flexible design could potentially accommodate various
if the system is sufficiently stiff or if the sliding velocity is high en-
materials and contacting geometries. The use of a two-contact sys-
ough (Persson, 1999). It can be seen that different friction curves
tem prevented the application of a bending moment on the bear-
were obtained for the different corn syrup solutions.
ings of the rheometer. Furthermore, the pivot allowed equal
Fig. 3b shows the coefficient of friction plotted against gv of
application of the normal force on the contact points.
the samples. For Newtonian fluids, it has previously been estab-
lished that the use of gv results in a master curve (Vicente et
2.3. Materials al., 2005a). This was observed for the corn syrup samples tested
here. The master curve could be divided into three typical lubrica-
Different concentrations (% w/w) of a corn syrup (LF9, Cerestar) tion regimes (Vicente et al., 2006b): at low speeds, in the bound-
were used to evaluate the tribology system. The samples were pre-
pared by mixing the as-received corn syrup with demineralised
water. The as-received corn syrup was also used without dilution;
in this case, it is considered as 100% w/w in the text. 100
A hard-soft contact condition was used in the present work. The
hard surface consisted of two machined, hemispherical steel pieces
10
of radius (R) 9.5 mm. The soft surface consisted of disks cut out
from silicon sheets (RXÒ Silicone, Eriks). The disks were of thick-
viscosity (Pa.s)

ness 4.2 mm and diameter 50 mm. The contact with the steel
1
hemispheres was at a distance of 22 mm from the centre of the
shaft and 4 mm from the edge of the disks.
0.1
2.4. Test protocol

Before each test session, the loose components of the tribology 0.01
cell such as the screws and the hemispherical parts as well as the
silicon disk were cleaned with acetone in an ultrasonic bath for
10 min. For each sample of corn syrup, both the cell and the disk 0.001
were first washed with demineralised water and then air-dried. 0 20 40 60 80 100
The silicon disk was then mounted to the cell with a screw, and % w/w corn syrup
the upper steel substrates were lowered onto the disk until the re-
quired normal force was achieved. These hemispheres were then Fig. 2. Dependence of viscosity g, on the weight fraction of corn syrup solutions.
 S.M. Goh et al. / Food Research International 43 (2010) 183–186 185

1
water

corn syrup

coefficient of friction
%w/w
10%
0.1 20%
60% 40%
100% 80% 60%
80%
100%
(a)
0.01
0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000
v (mm/s)

water
line of slope
0.55
corn syrup
coefficient of friction

%w/w
10%
0.1 20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
(b)

0.01
0.001 0.1 10 1000
ηv (mm.Pa)
Fig. 3. Measurements of the Stribeck curve using the tribo-rheometer setup: (a) raw data and (b) normalised against the viscosity. W = 3 N, R = 9.5 mm, speed ramp test.

ary lubrication regime, there was negligible fluid entrainment into
the contact and friction was dominated by direct contact between
the sliding surfaces. At higher speeds, the friction coefficient
decreased when the mixed regime was entered due to an increase
in hydrodynamic lift and fewer asperity-asperity contacts. At even
higher speeds, in the elasto-hydronamic lubrication regime, the
contact was lubricated completely by a fluid film and the friction
increased again as a function of speed, related to the viscosity of
the lubricating fluid. In this regime, the relationship between log
l and log gv in the hydrodynamic regime could be characterised
by a line with a slope of 0.55 as obtained from numerical solu-
tions (Vicente et al., 2005a). The proportionality between l and
(gv)1/2 has also been observed for rubbers sliding on glass in the
presence of water and silicone fluids (Cohen & Tabor, 1966). The
master curve for the corn syrup solutions, however, did not ap-
pear to agree with that for water, and this could be due to the
adsorption of the molecules in the corn syrup to the surface of
the silicon disk.
Fig. 4 shows the effect of normal load on the tribological behav-
iour of the corn syrup solutions. The data have been normalised
according to the Sommerfeld number, which is a dimensionless
term to describe the frictional behaviour in terms of the lubricant
viscosity, the size of the spherical slider, the sliding speed and the
normal load (Moore, 1975). It can be seen that the general progres-
sion from boundary to hydrodynamic lubrication regimes was
reproduced despite the different conditions applied. However, a
single master curve was not obtained due to the dependence of l
on the normal load at low Sommerfeld numbers where asperity
contact plays a dominant role. This behaviour was also observed
for water, as shown in Fig. 5, where an even larger dependency
on the normal load was obtained. Similar reduction in l with
increasing normal load has been observed in lubricated steel-rub-
ber contact (Denny, 1953), where the relationship 1/l = a + bW
was found, a and b being constants. The reason proposed for these
observations is that the real area of contact increases with increas-
ing normal pressure leading to a reduction in l. When a certain
normal pressure is reached, the real area of contact ceases to in-
crease and l remains constant (Denny, 1953). Nonetheless, it is
clear that the Sommerfeld number alone was insufficient to cap-
ture all the characteristics of the data since it does not include
186 S.M. Goh et al. / Food Research International 43 (2010) 183–186

0.6 the rheometer is that lubrication measurements can be performed

under various loading conditions, e.g. using a speed ramp, a load
ramp, or even a gap ramp. These may help facilitate simulating
0.5
the conditions in the mouth where the oral process is complex
involving movement of the mandible, squeezing of the teeth and
coefficient of friction

Normal
0.4 chewing (Chojnicka et al., 2008). Further investigations will be re-
load
100% quired to evaluate the usefulness of the system in measuring sam-
10% corn 3N
0.3 ples which exhibit non-Newtonian behaviour and/or contain
corn syrup 6N particulates since these aspects are relevant to real food systems
syrup 9N (Chojnicka et al., 2008).
0.2
80% 12N
corn Acknowledgements
0.1
syrup
The authors would like to thank Dr. J.R. Stokes and Dr. J.H.H.
0 Bongaerts for their comments.
1.E-09 1.E-07 1.E-05 1.E-03 1.E-01
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