Importance of tribology in food and dairy industries: An overview

Abstract

Tribology is an emerging discipline in food technology. Tribology is the science related to friction, lubrication and wear. The tribological characteristics of food provide information about the frictional interactions of food with the surfaces of the tongue, palate and teeth. Mouth feel attributes such as creaminess, smoothness, slipperiness, astringency are all related to tribology. Due to this obvious implication of food tribology it has attracted growing interest in food industries to develop tasty fat-reduced food to combat increased number of fat related diseases worldwide. In food tribology, the lubrication behavior of food samples can be understood with a well-known Stribeck curve that is a plot of the coefficient of friction against a combined parameter of viscosity, speed and load. Commercially available instruments that can mimic fat related sensory attributes are friction meter, optical tribological configuration, mounted tribological device, tribology cell, and mini-traction machine.