ARS | Publication request: CONSTITUTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE NONLINEAR RHEOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR OF CELLULOSIC FIBER GELS

Submitted to: Annual Meeting of the Bio Environmentally Degradable Polymer Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: August 10, 2003
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: The ability to predict the rheological performance of various biopolymers is an important tool in optimizing processing procedures in the food industry. The applicability of various integral and differential constitutive models to describe the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of cellulosic fiber gels was investigated. The rheological properties of the gels were investigated using stress relaxation, small-amplitude oscillatory shear, strain jump, and steady-state shear experiments. The model parameters were fitted using stress relaxation data and the predictions of the models were compared to the experimental data. The cellulosic fiber gels used in this study represent a new generation of no-calorie fat replacers. The gels were prepared from maize hulls by chemically and physically treating the pericarp cell wall substrate in a multistage process to disintegrate their morphological cellular structure. The presentation will discuss the rheological behavior of the cellulosic fiber gels and the viability of the various constitutive models to describe the measured flow behavior.