Microstructures and Surface Roughness of Foods Seminar

Registration And Downloads

Registration
Online Form
Mail-in Form [PDF]
Seminar Flyer
Download Flyer [PDF]

October 11, 2007

Location and Time

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Higgins House Great Hall
8:15am - 1:20pm

Directions to WPI's Worcester campus

The Surface Metrology Lab at WPI is hosting a seminar on understanding surface roughness for the food and bioengineering industries. We thought you should be interested.

Research on surface roughness has broad and keen interest. Food surface roughness is important for processing and quality. The roughness of food preparation and other surfaces in bioengineering are important for clean-ability and growth.

At WPI we have been specializing on measuring and analyzing surface roughness to support product and process design. We do this by advancing the understanding of the scales for differentiation and correlation of surface roughness of surfaces with different properties or processing.

Enclosed you will find more information on the seminar and registration materials. We look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely yours,

Prof. Christopher A. Brown, PhD., PE, FASME
Mechanical Engineering Department

About the speakers

Jose M. Aguilera is currently professor of Food Engineering at the P. Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago. A chemical engineer, he holds a MSc. degree in food technology from MIT and a PhD in food science from Cornell University. He has contributed to food technology and engineering, specifically the study of food microstructure, undertaking research in areas such as structure-property relationships in foods and biomaterials; applications of modern microscopy techniques; and modeling and quantitation of microstructural changes in foods. Aguilera has published more than 140 articles in international journals, several book chapters and is the author or co-author of 12 books, including Microstructural Principles of Food Processing (D.W. Stanley, co-author) and recently Food Materials Science (P. Lillford, co-editor) to be published by Springer later this year. He has participated as a keynote speaker at various professional association meetings and as a consultant to the Nestlé Research Center and Unilever. He was recipient of the A. von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (2001), the International Award (1993) and Research and Development Awards (2005) of the Institute of Food Technologists (USA) and in 2006 of the Marcel Loncin Research Prize.

Chris Brown has been working on industrial applications of surface metrology and doing groundbreaking research since the 1980s. He has published over fifty articles on surface metrology and has spoken on every continent except Africa and Antarctica. He has a patent on and develops software for using fractal geometry to analyze surface textures, which has been applied successfully to a variety of problems, from adhesion of thermal spray coatings to blooming on chocolate and scratches on fossilized teeth, at WPI and in collaborating laboratories in the US, Europe, and South America. Brown received his Ph.D. 1983 from the University of Vermont. For four years, he directed a surface research group and taught mechanical metallurgy laboratories at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Before going to WPI in 1989, he was a Senior Research Engineer at Atlas Copco's European Research Center. At WPI, he teaches courses on surface metrology, design and analysis of manufacturing processes, (including axiomatic design), and the technology of alpine skiing. Brown is the founder and director of WPI's Haas Technical Education Center for CNC machining and WPI's Surface Metrology Lab. He is a member of CIRP (The International Academy for Production Engineering), chaired the subcommittee on fractal methods for ASME/ANSI B46 Committee on Surface Texture, and he works with the ISO.

Abstracts

Microstructure of Foods and Relevance in Quality, by José Miguel Aguilera R.

This lecture will illustrate how food microstructure influences the sensorial characteristics, texture , physical and engineering properties, and even the availability of some nutrients. Approaches to quantify the microstructure of foods will be discussed as well as examples of miniaturization of processes under the microscope. Some cases of novel fabrication processes to achieve desired functionalities will be presented, and of how structure can be related to specific properties (the basis of materials science).

Surface Roughness and Properties of Foods, by José Miguel Aguilera R.

The first impression from a food comes from its surface. Fat migration to the surface of stored chocolate products is a major quality problem affecting an industry with annual sales of ca. US$ 70 billion. The phenomenon is adversely manifested in products as fat bloom or the growth of tiny fat crystals on the surface although the exact mechanism is still unknown. This presentation will present how the kinetics of surface roughness of chocolate can be measured and quantified using fractal theory. Also the topic of how to measure color in foods using computerized vision systems will be addressed.

Measurement and Analysis of Surface Roughness to Differentiate, Correlate, and to Determine Critical Scales, by Chris Brown

This presentation will introduce the participants to recent developments in surface metrology with applications to food science and surfaces. Examples will be presented from research conducted at WPI on morphological changes in cereal exposed to milk, fracture surfaces of chocolate, and bacterial adhesion. New methods that can be used to differentiate surfaces, and to correlate surfaces with behavior and processing, based on the scale of geometrical features will be reviewed. These methods have been shown to be significantly more effective than conventional methods.

Agenda

8:15 - 8:45

Registration and continental breakfast
8:45 to 9:45

José Miguel Aguilera R., Microstructure of Foods and Relevance in Quality
9:45-9:55

Refreshment break
9:55-10:55

José Miguel Aguilera R., Surface Roughness and Properties of Foods.
10:55-11:05

Refreshment break
11:05-12:20

Chris Brown, Measurement and Analysis of Surface Roughness to Differentiate, Correlate, and to Determine Critical Scales
12:20 - 1:20

Buffet lunch and individual discussions (lab and campus tours)

Registration

Seminar $325.00. Please register by email, online, or by downloading the registration form.

Download Seminar Flyer

Download a flyer [PDF] of speaker bios, abstracts, and agenda.

Future Seminars

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: October 03, 2007 15:46:59