These scientists want to innovate the way bread is made… with physics!

    These scientists want to innovate the way bread is made… with physics!

    A better dough thanks to physics: a research group from the Technical University of Munich - TUM (Germany) carried out the first 3D simulation of a bread dough, suggesting better techniques also applicable to industrial plants


    He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

    A better dough thanks to physics: a research group from the Technical University of Munich - TUM (Germany) carried out the first 3D simulation of a bread dough, suggesting better techniques also applicable to industrial plants.




    Bakers have been making bread for over 6.000 years with four simple ingredients: flour, salt, water and yeast. There quality of bread however, it is not determined only by the quality of these, but also by the kneading technique, the time and the environment of the leavening.

    The process, which in ancient times seemed almost like magic, is actually quite "banal" from a scientific point of view: during the dough, in fact, the air is incorporated into the matrix, developing the gluten network that forms the structure of the bread. It is important not to overload the dough, therefore, because this leads to a thick dough, reducing the water absorption capacity and compromising the leavening capacity.

    But the bakers also want to avoid putting in little material, because this reduces its capacity to absorb air. The technique is therefore scientifically "simple" but it is not at all trivial to find the right means. Currently, however, there are tools to automatically control the kneading process.

    TUM researchers made the first 3D simulation of a bread dough, describing the local mechanical and microstructural changes that occur during the different phases of the mixing process, which is physically a complex material whose mechanical properties are "intermediate" between those of a viscous liquid and those of an elastic solid.

    “Due to its elasticity, the dough overcomes the gravitational forces during the process and moves towards the rotating rod, then climbs onto it. Anyone who has used a kneader or mixer to make the dough has probably observed this phenomenon " Spiega Natalie Germann, co-author of the study.

    The researchers simulated a dough by computer considering its viscous and elastic properties, as well as the free surface that forms between the air and the dough itself: the virtual system then created computer geometries based on CAD drawings of real industrial mixers to obtain forecasts as close to reality as possible.



    "Previous works considered only the purely viscous properties of the bread dough and limited their simulations to extremely simplified geometries such as a concentric cylinder configuration - continues Germann - [...] In this way the normal stress effects responsible for the phenomenon of climbing on the rotating pole ".

    Just a "curious" study? Much more, because such a detailed understanding, never realized before, also suggests technical innovations, which can lead to better quality bread.

    "Our computer simulations have shown that vertical mixing is not as good as the radial one we considered in our work - concludes the researcher - In the future, mixing performance could be improved using a more curved spiral arm or two spiral arms similar to human arms ”.



    The work was published on Physics of fluids.

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