Mechanical properties of wheatflake components

Abstract

The mechanical behaviour of breakfast wheat flake materials of different composition reconstituted as bar-shaped test pieces, to reduce the geometry and structure effects and allow better comparison of the matrix properties, is reported. The ground flakes comprised a control formulation and others in which one or more components had been subtracted. The aim was to compare the mechanical properties of pressed specimens of multiple-component systems with those published for simpler one- and two-component materials. The results on the bending modulus, E, at 20 °C fell into two groups, depending on whether sucrose (wheat:sucrose = 5.9-6.1:1) was present. Sucrose lowered the modulus but by progressively less with decreasing water content below 22% (wet weight basis, w.w.b), the difference becoming negligible at water contents of 7–10% (w.w.b). However, the energy to break samples at 7% water content (w.w.b) was greater when sucrose was subtracted from the control formulation sample.