Development of an indirect method for evaluating porous cereal product structures using acoustic echolocation
Abstract
The porosity and structure of cereal products have been evaluated using an indirect method of acoustic echolocation and an acoustic level meter with a special measurement vessel. First, the construction of the measurement vessel of the non-contact acoustic level meter was improved. Then by determining the amount of absorbed water and its water absorption dynamics, an accurate method to evaluate the structure of porous cereal products has been developed. Links between the indices of ring-shaped roll structure parameters (total amount of absorbed water and water absorption dynamics) and the standard weighing method were established. The quality of baked products such as ring-shaped rolls is related to the total amount of water absorbed and the water absorption dynamics. Linear or exponential dependences indicate good quality while exponential or composite dependences indicate average quality and composite dependences poor quality. The results show that the echolocation method gives additional information on the structure parameters of porous cereal products. The application of this method to the optimization of technological processes has been proven. In comparison with analogue methods such as the weighing method the proposed method is non-destructive. We can, therefore, repeat the investigations several times using the same sample. In this way the accuracy of measurements can be improved. Additionally the acoustic method is rapid and simple.
- Publication:
-
Measurement Science and Technology
- Pub Date:
- February 2006
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0957-0233/17/2/004
- Bibcode:
- 2006MeScT..17..249J