Linear viscoelastic properties of flour–water doughs at different water concentrations

Abstract

In this paper, some dynamic and relaxation data on an Australian strong flour–water dough are reported. Strain sweep experiments showed that the linear viscoelastic strain limit is extremely low, of O (10 −3), consistent with other published data on doughs. Oscillatory shear data showed that the dynamic viscosity follows an approximately power-law behaviour in the frequency, with no visible zero- and high-frequency Newtonian regions. The storage modulus data did not clearly reveal any elasticity modulus at low frequency. Relaxation data after a single-step shear strain were also obtained in the linear viscoelastic region, showing a possible plateau modulus at long time. The relaxation spectra derived from both the dynamic and relaxation data are fully consistent, indicating that the sample preparation and the testing procedure were satisfactory.