Computer simulations of food oral processing to engineer teeth cleaning

Abstract

Oral biofilm accumulation in pets is a growing concern. It is desirable to address this problem via non-invasive teeth cleaning techniques, such as through friction between teeth and food during chewing. Therefore, pet food design tools are needed towards optimising cleaning efficacy. Developing such tools is challenging, as several parameters affecting teeth cleaning should be considered: the food’s complex mechanical response, the contacting surfaces topology as well as the wide range of masticatory and anatomical characteristics amongst breeds. We show that Finite Element (FE) models can efficiently account for all these parameters, through the simulation of food deformation and fracture during the first bite. This reduces the need for time consuming and costly in-vivo or in-vitro trials. Our in-silico model is validated through in-vitro tests, demonstrating that the initial oral processing stage can be engineered through computers with high fidelity.

Materials Properties, Oral Processing, and Sensory Analysis of Eating Meat and Meat Analogs

“…Recently, an in silico model for oral processing successfully predicted food breakdown (Skamniotis et al 2019). With advancements in 3D scanning (Dick et al 2019), further understanding of physical changes during meat consumption may allow for models that better help us understand the meat-eating process (Figure 5).…”

Food Oral Processing—An Industry Perspective

“…Experimental approaches to understand food oral processing have been complemented by mathematical modeling and simulation. These approaches usually focus on an isolated aspect of food oral processing, e.g., resolution limits for detection of solid objects ( 94 , 95 ), fracture mechanics [e.g., ( 96 )], effects of friction and wear [e.g., ( 97 )], heat transfer and melting [e.g., ( 4 )] or swallowing ( 50 ).…”

A diverse member of the fungal Avr4 effector family interacts with de-esterified pectin in plant cell walls to disrupt their integrity

“…All indentation tests on a given petiole were carried out within 10 min of removal from the plant stem. The parameters that were obtained from texture analysis were maximum force (in newton), defined as the highest normal on the probe achieved during the test, stiffness (in newton per millimeter), defined as the maximum force achieved during the test divided by the total displacement of the probe, and distance at fracture (in millimeter), quantified as the displacement of the probe when the first significant fracture (breakage) of the petiole tissue occurred ( 47 ). The first significant fracture of the petiole tissue was defined as the first peak in the texture curve (force versus distance) with prominence >0.015 N, which was used to ensure that a consistent criterion was applied to all samples.…”