Examination of inter-particle forces to simulate noodle dough based on DEM

K Kuwagi, Y Sasaki, S Maki and H Hirano

20th APCChE (Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering) Congress

The Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering

the SMX Convention Center, Manila, Philippines

https://apcche2023.org/

Many kinds of noodles, e.g. Udon, Soba, Ramen (Chinese noodles) and pasta, are consumed in Japan. In order to make a dough, wheat flour and salty water are mixed and kneaded. For this process, a kneading machine is used industrially. A kneading machine consists of kneading blades and container. A kneading machine is optimally designed for predetermined input. If an input is less than the predetermined one, a dough cannot be sufficiently kneaded because it runs idle between kneading blades. When a small amount is ordered, the amount predetermined for the machine is kneaded and then the unnecessary dough is discarded. This is just 'Mottainai!' which means 'What a waste!' in Japanese. In order to resolve this problem, it is necessary to improve the shapes of kneading blades and container which can apply various inputs. Here, numerical simulation is useful to examine various shapes. We firstly attempted to conduct the simulations with VOF (Volume of Fluid) method which treats dough as a fluid. However, the simulation numerically diverged because of the large difference of shear force between two phases, i.e. dough and air. We then applied DEM (Discrete Element Method) which treats dough as an aggregate of particles. Though the inter-particle force is important to simulate the behavior of dough with DEM, the constitution equation for dough has not been derived. We thus adopted the liquid bridging model and the JKR (Johnson-Kendall-Roberts) contact model. Compression test and drop test were conducted in both a simulation and an experiment. Furthermore, we simulated the behavior of dough in the industrial kneading machine. The simulated behavior of dough well agreed with the experimental one.