Finite Element Modeling and Physical Property Estimation of Rheological Food Objects

The purpose of this study is to accurately simulate the rheological behaviors of food objects undergoing a loading-unloading operation using finite element (FE) model. Due to the presence of residual deformation, it is difficult to model rheological behaviors. Especially, it is hard to accurately reproduce both rheological force and residual deformation simultaneously. In this study, objects made of food materials were tested. Force and deformation measurements were recorded for parameter estimation. Constitutive models were investigated for describing rheological behaviors. A parallel five-element model including two dual-moduli viscous elements was proposed to accurately predict both rheological force and residual deformation simultaneously. 2D/3D FE model was formulated for simulating rheological behaviors. To estimate the parameters, an effective four-step method was established based on nonlinear optimization which aimed at minimizing the differences of forces and deformation between simulation and experiments. The proposed FE model and parameter estimation method were validated in both 2D and 3D cases and good agreements were achieved in both rheological forces and deformation between numerically simulated and experimentally measured data.