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Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917

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Fracture intermittency during a puncture test of cereal snacks

and its relation to porous structure
Yoshiki Tsukakoshi *, Shigehiro Naito, Nobuaki Ishida
Analytical Science Division, National Food Research Institute, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Kannondai, 2-1-12 Tsukuba,
Ibaraki, Japan

Received 7 June 2007; accepted 25 November 2007

Abstract

The puncture test is widely used to assess the quality of cereal snacks. The number of fractures, which cause sudden force reductions
observed in force–distance curves obtained during the puncture test, has been proposed to be a good predictor of sensory crispness. We
used a stochastic model to determine fracture occurrence in two types of porous cereal snacks: Senbei (a Japanese rice cracker) and Ebis-
en (a flour-based snack). We studied the frequency distribution of the number of fractures for a single test. The observed variance to
mean ratio of the numbers of fractures exceeded unity. On the basis of point process theory, this observation indicated a clustering
of fractures. Correspondingly, the distance between successive fracture events was approximated more accurately by a power-law distri-
bution than by an exponential distribution. Exponential distribution was a better distribution for intervals longer than 0.5 mm for Senbei
suggesting random or quasi-periodic occurrence of clusters.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fracture; Porosity; Rice cracker; Flour snack; Point process

1. Introduction lieux, Ralainirina, & Queneudec, 2006). During these

Pores play an important role in the crispness and texture
of cereal-based snacks (Kraynik & Reinelt, 1999; Peleg,
1997). In the extreme, many crispy foods would be too
hard to masticate if they did not have pores. One of the
common indexes for the porosity of the food is expansion
ratio, which is the ratio of the volume of the porous final
product to that of the dough. This ratio has often been
used as an indicator of the quality of cereal-based snacks
(Yuilani, Torley, Bruce, Nicholson, & Bhandari, 2006).
However, the ratio alone is not sufficient to describe all
aspects of texture of cereal snacks. Mechanical test is
important.
Puncture tests has been conducted by many food
researchers to assess the texture mechanically (Ding, Ains-
worth, Plunkett, Tucker, & Marson, 2006; Mezreb, Goul-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 29 838 8056; fax: +81 29 838 7996.
E-mail address: Yoshiki.Tsukakoshi@gmail.com (Y. Tsukakoshi).
tests, several sudden force reductions are observed in the
force curve, which mainly correspond to localized fractures
in the food. Thus number of force reduction depends on
the characteristics of pores and walls in food (Hayter &
Smith, 1988). In addition, the number varies remarkably
with the water content of the food (van Hecke, Allaf, &
Bouvier, 1998) and is closely related to sensory attributes
(Dogan & Kokini, 2007; Heindereich, Jaros, Rohm, &
Ziems, 2004; Valles Pamies, Roudaut, Dacremont, Le
Meste, & Mitchell, 2000). Therefore, the number of force
reduction is a useful index of the texture and structure.
However, it depends on various factors thus its interpreta-
tion is not straightforward thus requires further studies.
In our previous article (Tsukakoshi, Naito, & Ishida,
2007), we used a food puncture test that involves the use
of a slim plunger (Hayter & Smith, 1988; Hiller, Bruce, &
Jeronimidis, 1996). This test can be used to study the struc-
ture of food and provides results that are less variable than
those of other food puncture tests because it allows

0963-9969/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2007.11.010
910 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917
multiple tests to be conducted on the same sample, provid-
ing a large amount of data.
In the article, we studied the frequency-size distribution
of the magnitude of force reductions caused by fractures
inside samples, stressing that they occur stochastically. As
in other studies (Aarseth, S?rensen, & Storebakken,
2006), the frequency-size distribution fit a Weibull distribu-
tion well. The exponential distribution, which is reported
for fractures during a compression test (Barrett, Rosen-
berg, & Ross, 1994), was less accurate although it was still
reasonable for puncture test data.
In the present study, our aim is to go one step further by
evaluating both the force reduction occurrence and the
force reduction interval distribution in response to a food
puncture test on the basis of point process theory.
The force reduction interval distribution depends partly
on the porosity of the food as stated earlier. The strength of
snacks varies due to the presence of pores (Trater, Alavi, &
Rizvi, 2005). The penetration force required is weak when
the plunger tip is in the pores of snacks, and is strong when
the plunger tip is in contact with the wall of the pores of
snacks. When the wall fractures by the force applied by
the plunger tip, a sudden force reduction observed.
However, the force reduction interval is not attributable
to the porosity of the food alone; the roughness in the con-
tact area affects the time history of the force. In other
words, the width of the plunger affects the force–distance
curves. When a wide plunger is used to penetrate the
snacks, it is difficult to attribute one observed fracture to
a single wall beneath the center of the plunger. The subse-
quent fractures, the interval sizes of which are less than the
diameter of the plunger pin, are likely to be attributable to
microscopic structures smaller than the diameter of the
plunger tip and not to the fracture of a single wall. As
deducing the occurrence of force reductions directly from
such point of view is too complex to begin the study of
force reduction intervals, here we consider applicability
of some mathematical models to characterize the intervals.
Point process theory has been developed in the field of
mathematics to model countable phenomena and here we
apply it the theory to model the occurrence force reduction.
The standard point process is a homogeneous Poisson
point process (HPP), named after Siméon-Denis Poisson.
The current experimental data could be modeled in terms
of this process. The underlying hypothesis of HPP is that
the fracture occurs with the same probability during the
entire observation period (Daley & Vere-Jones, 2003).
The hypothesis may be violated considering there are two
mechanisms of fracture generation we discussed: pores
and the roughness of the contact area. The doubly stochas-
tic point process, which assumes random occurrence of
multiple events, may be preferable to HPP. As part of this
process, power-law intermittency can occur, such as fractal
Poisson process (FPP; Lowen & Teich, 1993), which might
be a better model for the data. It is known that different
processes produce different spectra (Bartlett, 1963). In par-
ticular, noise with 1/f spectrum produced by some point
processes (Lowen & Teich, 1993) is sometimes considered
to be a more pleasant stimulus than white noise or 1/f2
noise (Voss & Clarke, 1975).
Many important factors characterize the point pro-
cesses, including the distribution of interval length between
fractures, the dependence of fracture occurrence rate on
penetration depth, and whether cluster events can be elim-
inated (Tsukakoshi & Shimazaki, 2006). However, these
factors are not understood in case of the puncture of cereal
snacks.
The force reductions during the puncture tests occur
rapidly; this causes the observed force–distance curves to
differ based on the plunger speed. Therefore, the discussion
of intermittency was difficult in our previous study. In the
present study, we introduced a testing machine with
improved frequency characteristics to observe a large num-
ber of individual fracture events.
We used a rice cracker product and a flour-based snack
product as test materials. In Japan, rice crackers are very
popular, with the third-highest consumption rates among
Japanese snacks. The chemical composition, processing,
and rice variety are known to change the porous structure
of rice crackers. Although Senbei and Ebisen snacks may
not be a common food globally, similar porous snacks
made from flour and corn are sold in many countries.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Japanese rice crackers were bought at a city market. The
crackers are made with rice flour and are brushed with
salad oil ‘‘Senbei” is often translated as ‘‘rice cracker”
and these crackers are the third most purchased snacks in
Japan. The main ingredient is steamed and ground into
dough. The dough is cut into a disk shape and then baked
at approximately 180 °C until it becomes crisp. The final
product has a cellular structure. The brand used in this
study contains cornstarch and soy lecithin to improve the
texture.
The individual pieces of the cracker have diameters of
7 cm, thicknesses ranging from 7.5 to 8.5 mm, and an aver-
age mass of 10.8 g. The mass density is 0.35 g/cm3. The
nutrition label on the package indicates that 5.6% of the
total mass is protein, 22.2% is lipids, and 68.5% is carbohy-
drates. The sodium content is 0.87%. The lipids and
sodium are concentrated in the outer layer.
The crackers were equilibrated using salts of potassium
acetate (relative humidity: 23.5%), MgCl2 (33%), K2CO3
(44%), MgNO3 (51%), NaBr (57%), NaCl (78.5%), and sil-
ica gel as a drying agent. The temperature during equilibra-
tion was 25 °C.
The flour-based snack used in this study was Kappa-
Ebisen (shrimp-flavored cracker) and was bought at a city
market. They have a cellular structure and a mass density
of 0.28 g/cm2. For more details, cracker, please refer to
Tsukakoshi et al. (2007).
 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917
2.2. Mechanical measurement
A Tensipresser rheometer (TTX-BXII; Taketomo Elec-
tric Inc., Tokyo, Japan) was used to measure the force–dis-
tance curves. The penetration speed is 2 mm/s. Tsukakoshi
et al. (2007) showed that the difference in the number of
fractures obtained using the Texture Analyzer (Stable
Micro Systems Ltd., Vienna Court, UK) and using the ori-
ginal Tensipresser is limited in the number of fractures
smaller than 0.5 N, when the puncture speed is 2 mm/s.
The penetration depth is selected so that the plunger pene-
trates to the opposite side. The pin plunger is cylindrical.
The magnification is set to 10 and the multiplication factor
was set to 1.
In order to improve the frequency range, the output
from the 200-N load cell (force detector) of the Tensipress-
er was connected directly to an amplifier (Fig. 1). The
amplifier was a voltage follower circuit that uses an op-
amp LF-711 (National Semiconductor Inc., CA, USA).
The output was then quantified with a 16-bit resolution,
50-kHz sampling, analog-to-digital converter USB-1608
(Measurement Computing Inc., MA, USA). The system
was named ‘‘Tensipresser DAQ module”. We eliminate
the higher frequency component of the signal using a
tenth-order Bessel low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency
of 200 Hz. The cutoff frequency is 10 times that of the ori-
ginal Tensipresser.
This avoids the artificial signals due to the resonance of
the measurement machine; however, this is a different
approach to the problem than that used by Taniwaki,
Hanada, and Sakurai (2006), who changed the resonance
frequency itself.
It is important to affix the cracker to the machine during
the puncture test. In our experiment, the crackers were sup-
ported on a frog (spiked device), which is usually used to
support flower stems. The frog consisted of dozens of brass
spikes on a lead support. These spikes limit horizontal
movement during puncture. As for vertical movement,
the cracker rarely sank to the support when the force was
applied from the top because the contact area of the plun-
Load Cell
Plunger Pin
DAQ Module
Sample
Amplifier
Tensipresser
Brass Spikes
D/A Converter
PC
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the measurement system. The signal from
load cells is directly amplified and quantified therein.
911
ger pin was smaller than the total contact area of the spikes
on the supporting frog. The stainless steel plunger pin of
the puncture machine was cylindrical, with a flat tip, and
its diameter was 0.5 mm.
For the Senbei test, two rice crackers were tested. One
hundred punctures were conducted on each rice cracker.
For the Ebisen test, nine identical punctures were con-
ducted on each flour snack. In both tests, the punch sites
were selected to ensure that they were well distributed.
The measurement time was approximately 30 min for
each cracker. During the measurement, the relative humid-
ity of the room was 60%. The crackers shrank significantly
when equilibrated with pure water (100%); thus, this condi-
tion was not used.
2.3. Statistical formulation
First, we briefly introduced the point process theory
according to Snyder (1975). Si is the sequence of random
variables that obeys a probability density function p(x),
and Xt, which represents the renewal process, is given as
follows:
( )
Xn
X t ¼ sup n : Si < t ; ð1Þ
i¼1
where Xt is the number of fractures observed until time t,
and p(x) is the probabilistic distribution of the fracture
interval.
The renewal m(t) function is defined as follows:
mðtÞ ¼ E½X t ; ð2Þ
where E[Xt] show the expectation, or average, of the ran-
dom variable Xt. In other words, the renewal function is
the expectation of the number of fractures obtained from
a sufficiently large number of trials.
Here, we consider two processes. First, we assume the
process is HPP, whose interval is exponentially distributed.
One important statistic with HPP is the rate of fracture
occurrence. Let x be the size of intervals and p(x|k) be
the probability that the intervals of length x is observed
when the rate is k. HPP produces the interval function of
the form
1
pHPP ðxjkÞ ¼ ðexpðxmin ÞkÞ expðkxÞ: ð3Þ
Here, we ignored small intervals and assumed that x is
greater than a threshold xmin.
The distribution is described by an exponential function
of negated product of the size x and rate parameter k,
which describes the average occurrence rate of the fracture.
The renewal function then becomes
mðtÞ ¼ kt: ð4Þ
It is also known that if the time interval between events
obeys the distribution, the occurrence rate of the event is
considered to be independent from the occurrence time of
the previous events.
912 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917
Next, we had to consider the boundary problem: large
intervals may be missing because the observation depth L
is limited. The probability that a fracture occurs at the
depth of x is given by the derivative of renewal function
m(x). In the case of HPP, it is constant regardless of x
and equal to the inverse of L. Let q(y| x, L) be the proba-
bility that the interval of length x is observed after a frac-
ture occurs at y be observed until the end of the
observation (L). Then, the probability that the interval of
length x is observed in the observation is given by the fol-
lowing equation:
 to the models was judged using a likelihood ratio test,
1 ðy 6 L  xÞ
qðyjx; LÞ ¼
0 ðy > L  xÞ
Z L   ! ð5Þ
dmðtÞ
P HPP OBS ðxÞ / pðxÞqðyÞ dy
dt t¼y
0 2 log QN
By ignoring a scaling constant, we obtain
pHPP OBS ðxÞ / ðL  xÞ expðkxÞ:
The above observation probability has several characteris-
tics. The observed probability for longer intervals became
smaller than the occurrence probability because their ends
were more likely to be outside of D. Indeed, it approached
zero as the length of the segment reached D, which is
reasonable.
The distribution of the number of fractures during dis-
tance D is given by Poisson distribution shown as follows:
n
ekD ðkDÞ
PrfmðDÞ ¼ ng ¼ : ð7Þ
n!
The variance to mean ratio (Fisher, 1950), sometimes
called the Fano factor (Fano, 1947), is an important statis-
tic of point process. It is expected to be unity for HPP. For
a clustered occurrence, the variance to mean ratio exceeds
unity. For a periodic occurrence, the ratio is smaller than
unity.
In the alternative model, a power-law distribution is
assumed for the distribution of interval length. The
power-law distribution is often called the Pareto distribu-
tion (Pareto, 1897). We termed the process FPP. Consider-
ing that there is a minimum size for detection, the
distribution can be given as follows:
p1
pFPP ðxÞ ¼ xp ; x > xm :
xmp1
For the interval distribution, the boundary effect is hard to
estimate because the occurrence rate is not constant in the
interval [0, D], and the renewal function m(t) is not a linear
function of t. However the following theorem is valid for a
general point process:
E½X t 
!l ðt ! 1Þ:
t samples, the relation between fracture stress and the prod-
From the observations thereafter, the renewal function rate
approached to a constant l with a very fast conversion
rate; therefore, we assumed that the renewal function was
well approximated by the linear function of t. The interval
function for the power-law distribution was observed as
follows:
Z L
p L  x Lx
pFPP ðxÞ ¼ x xp dx: ð10Þ
L xmin L
The parameter k in the HPP and p for power-law inter-
mittency model were obtained by the maximum likelihood
estimate (Fisher, 1922). Saksena and Johnson (1984)
showed that the estimators are jointly complete in the
two-parameter Pareto distribution. The goodness-of-fit
which uses the following statistics (Neyman & Pearson,
1928):
QN !
i¼1 p HPP ðxi Þ
: ð11Þ
i¼1 p FPP ðxi Þ
where N is the number of intervals observed and xi is the
ð6Þ length of the ith observed interval.
The denominator in the probability density function was
calculated using the numerical integration in 0.001 inter-
vals. The maximization of the log-likelihood function was
conducted using the fminsearch function, which is imple-
mented in MATLAB. The maximization algorithm was
the Nelder–Mead simplex method (Nelder & Mead,
1965). The significance was studied using the likelihood
test.
2.4. Magnetic resonance imaging
To obtain the geometrical structure of the snacks, the
Fe3+-acetone method devised by Ishida et al. (2000) was
used to obtain nuclear magnetic resonance images with a
300-MHz micro-MR imaging system (DRX300WB; Bru-
ker, Karlsruhe, Germany).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Typical observed force–distance curve
An example of the force time history detected by our
apparatus is shown in Fig. 2. While approaching distance
0, the force level scatters around 0, which means that the
ð8Þ tip of the plunger pin does not contact the surface of the
cracker. The signal that is smaller than 0.1 N is just a
noise. Thus force reductions greater than 0.1 N can be
counted as signal. The stress level that corresponds to a
0.1 N force by the 0.5-mm diameter cylindrical plunger
is approximately 0.5 MPa. The detection limit is greater
than the stress levels observed during compression studies.
However, the level was proved to be small enough to
ð9Þ detect many fractures. Indeed for ductile inhomogeneous
uct of plunger area and load is not simple. van Hecke
et al. (1998) showed that the peak forces during puncture
are not proportional to the area of the plunger. Hiller
 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917
A 2
1.5
Force (N)
1
0.5
0
−0.5
−1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Depth (mm)
Fig. 2. Typical force–distance curves during puncture of the (A) and Ebisen (B) snacks. Sudden force reductions in the curves are due to the localized
fractures. Only noise is observed before distance 0, and its magnitude is less than 0.1 N.
et al. (1996) observed a 10-mN load for fresh potato
puncture by using a 20-lm micro-indentor. The fre-
quency-size distribution of force reductions observed with
a plunger with a 0.7-mm diameter was described by Tsu-
kakoshi et al. (2007). In that study, several force changes
greater than 0.1 N were observed. Thus, the force level
used to puncture the snacks can be detected with our
measurement system.
After the tip of the plunger pin contacted the surface of
the cracker at approximately 0 mm, the puncture force
increased. When the load level reached its local maximum,
it stayed around its maximum level for several tenths of a
millimeter, and then the load suddenly decreased. The rate
of force reductions is very fast. Luyten and van Vilet (2006)
estimated that the rupture rate would be faster than 100 m/
s, which means that the rupture propagates 1 mm in 10 ls.
After the first fracture, there was a residual force. The force
level may indicate the friction between the cracker and the
plunger pin. It appears that the fractures occur in clusters
after the first fracture. The statistical analysis is presented
below.
3.2. MR image of the food products’ porous network
Nuclear magnetic resonance images of the Senbei (rice
cracker) and Ebisen (flour cracker) are shown in Fig. 3.
The acetone filled in the pores appears gray, and the gluten
or starch network appears black. A visual comparison of
the two foods indicates that Ebisen tends to have larger
pores. The mass density of Senbei was greater than that
of Ebisen (0.35 and 0.28 g/cm3, respectively); thus, the
expansion rate of Senbei may be lower. This finding does
not agree with the finding of Hayter, Smith, and Richmond
(1985), i.e., that the pore size of extruded food foam gener-
ally decreases as the bulk density of the foam decreases.
Furthermore, the cooking method used may affect pore
size; the crackers used in the present study were not baked
but rather were cooked using an extrusion method
The ratio of cell wall thickness to cell diameter indicates
some degree of correlation with the relative density of food
913
3.5
B
3
2.5
Force (N)
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
−0.5
6 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Depth (mm)
(Agbisit, Alavi, Cheng, Herald, & Trater, 2007; Chang,
Alavi, Pearson, & Agbisit, 2007). Although the resolution
of the MRI image was insufficient, we did notice that the
Senbei wall was somewhat thinner than the Ebisen wall,
which supported the findings of Agbist et al.
3.3. Renewal intervals – distribution of time intervals
between successive fractures
Force reductions occur when the tip of the plunger pin
breaks the walls in the food; thus, the interval may reflect
the distance between the walls. Time intervals between suc-
cessive force reductions are shown in a plot of cumulative
frequency versus interval (Fig. 4). During the Ebisen punc-
ture, there were more intervals longer than 0.5 mm than
there were in the Senbei puncture. On the other hand, the
Senbei puncture resulted in more intervals between 0.05
and 0.5 mm. The frequency of intervals smaller than
0.05 mm is about the same between the two foods.
The difference in the number of large intervals is con-
sistent with the visual impression that there are more
large pores in Ebisen than in Senbei (Fig. 3). On the other
hand, Senbei had more intervals smaller than 0.5 mm.
This is also consistent with the visual impression that
Senbei has more small pores. Intervals greater than
0.5 mm would be due to microscopic roughness; 0.5 mm
is five times longer than the wavelength of a 20-Hz signal
observed at the speed of 2 mm/s.
The size distribution of Senbei intervals longer than
0.5 mm fits significantly better by the modified exponential
distribution equation. (6) than by the modified power-law
distribution equation. (7) (P < 0.05), which indicates ran-
dom occurrence events. Lim and Barigou (2004) reported
that the cell size distribution in a chocolate bar was best fit-
ted to gamma distribution, whereas the cell sizes of honey-
comb chocolate, marshmallow, muffin, and mousse were
well-fitted to a log-normal distribution. This observation
indicates that the shape of the bubble size distribution
depends on the type of food, as can be observed by our
914 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917

Fig. 3. Magnetic resonance images of the Senbei (A) and Ebisen (B) snacks. The thin black film shows the walls of the cells. The white points are artifacts
that arise from the disturbance caused by the distortion of the magnetic field due to the difference in the magnetism of acetone and the network. The actual
dimensions of the section of each cracker shown in the image are 12.8 by 12.8 mm.

3.4. Count statistics – distribution of the number of force

changes

The histograms of force change points in each puncture

are shown in Fig. 5. The distributions of both Senbei and
Ebisen tails rightward. Since the normal distribution is
symmetrical, this could not be considered a normal distri-
bution. This means that a standard t-test is not a proper
testing method for the number of fractures. The chi-square
test for goodness-of-fit to Poisson distribution shows that it
significantly deviates from the distribution (P < 0.01). This
is expected because the intervals between fractures do not
obey exponential distributions. Correspondingly, the vari-
ance to mean ratio is 5.6 for Ebisen and 2.9 for Senbei.
Fig. 4. Cumulative frequency plot of the interval between successive Both ratios exceed unity; therefore, the processes are not
fractures observed during 200 punctures of the Senbei and Ebisen snacks. Poisson processes (Fisher, 1950) and clustering occurrence
was induced. A non-parametric test is recommended to test
the number of fractures.
experimental design. The coefficient k in Eq. (6) is 1.5 for
Senbei and 1.2 for Ebisen.
The size distribution of both Senbei and Ebisen intervals
longer than 0.1 mm fits significantly better by a power-law
distribution than by an exponential distribution (P < 0.05).
The longer tail than exponential distribution suggests that
the pore size distribution obeys log-normal function (Bel-
lido, Scanlon, Page, & Hallgrimsson, 2006). The coefficient
p in Eq. (8) is 2.2 for Senbei and 1.7 for Ebisen.
Although it is difficult to model fractures in food
exactly, the transition from power-law distribution in short
intervals to the exponential distribution in longer intervals
has also been observed when studying the occurrence of
earthquakes. Background earthquakes occurs indepen-
dently of each other and each background event is followed Fig. 5. Histogram of the number of fractures during one puncture of the
by aftershocks according to power-law decay (Hainzl, Senbei and Ebisen snacks. The total number of observation is 200 for both
Scherbaum, & Beauval, 2006). Senbei and Ebisen.
 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917 915

The degree of force reduction is reported to overestimate

the number of pore walls in food foam (Hayter & Smith,
1988), which suggests that a single fracture of a wall can
cause multiple force reductions in the force–deformation
curve. Thus, the clustering of force reduction does not nec-
essarily indicate that the walls are actually spaced with a
power-law interval.

3.5. Relation between penetration depth and the occurrence

rate of fractures

The plot of the cumulative number of force reductions

versus the depth at the tip of the plunger is shown in
Fig. 6. The slope of the curve shows the number of force
reductions in a unit interval, which is the occurrence rate
of force reduction. The rate becomes lower as the plunger
pin penetrates deeper and becomes constant at a depth of
1 mm. A plot of cumulative force reduction versus depth
shows the force released by sudden force reduction during
a unit interval, which decreases as the pin penetrates dee-
per. This finding is consistent with the characteristic that
the cell walls are denser near the surface.
A plot of the cumulative force reduction versus the event
number shows that the slope of the curve is constant
throughout the period, which means that the average size
of the Ebisen force reduction is approximately uniform
regardless of the penetration depth.

3.6. Relation between water activity and the occurrence rate

of fractures

Visual inspection of the force–distance curves for the

soggy sample showed both sudden and gradual force
reductions. These force reduction corresponded to brittle
and ductile fractures, respectively. Moisture absorption
causes a transition from brittle to ductile in some walls,
which reduces the number of brittle fractures. On the other
hand, ductile fractures are observed as a gradual reduction
in force and are not considered to be sudden force reduc-
tions; thus, the number of sudden force reductions
decreases with moisture absorption.
Fig. 7 depicts the plots of cumulative number of frac-
tures versus depth of the plunger head for samples at var-
ious moisture levels. The occurrence rate and the
cumulative number of fractures decreased with increasing
moisture absorption. This finding is consistent with the Fig. 6. Change in fracture occurrence along the penetration depth. A: Plot
of depth versus the cumulative number of fractures; the slope of the curve
result of van Hecke et al. (1998) for extrudates and with
shows the average occurrence rate. B: Plot of depth versus the cumulative
those of Sanz, Primo-Martin, and van Vilet (2007) for force reduction; the slope of the curve shows the average force reduction
French fries. Corradini and Peleg (2006) discussed the rate. C: Plot of the cumulative number of fractures versus the cumulative
observations that direction reversals correlate with the force curve; the slope of the curve shows the average size of the force
fractal dimension and that the water absorption decreases reduction.
the fractal dimension. Assuming that the number of direc-
tion reversals is similar to the number of fractures, the
result is consistent with our results. as 10 d, and the moisture distribution was homogeneous.
At a high moisture level, the fracture occurrence rate at The occurrence rate between a depth of 2 and 4 mm is
a depth between 0 and 1 mm is higher than that at a depth smaller than in other areas. This may reflect inhomogeneity
between 1 and 3 mm. The time for equilibration was taken along depth.
916 Y. Tsukakoshi et al. / Food Research International 41 (2008) 909–917
50
40
Cumulative Number
30
20
10
0 point processes Volume I: Elementary theory and methods (2nd ed.).
0 1 2 3 4 5
Depth (mm)
Fig. 7. Cumulative number of fracture events for Senbei at several
moisture levels. The highest curve corresponds to dry samples. Lower
curves are for 23.5% relative humidity (RH), 33% RH, 44% RH, 51% RH,
57% RH, and 78.5% RH samples.
3.7. Conclusion
Our study showed that puncture data reflects the effects
of structure and moisture absorption on the fracture
behavior of snacks. The results obtained for two types of
snacks showed that an exponential distribution is a better
approximation to the distribution of long intervals between
successive fracture events during puncture than a power-
law distribution. On the other hand, the short intervals
are better described by a power-law distribution.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Harte at Statistics Research Associates
(New Zealand) for discussions during his stay at the Insti-
tute of Statistical Mathematics (Japan) at the invitation of
Prof. Ogata. We also thank Mr. Nishizawa and Mr. Yam-
aguchi at Taketomo Electric Inc. for their generous sup-
port in developing the equipment. We are grateful to Dr.
Kohyama, Dr. Otsubo and Dr. Suzuki at NFRI for valu-
able comments. We thank anonymous referees for con-
structive suggestions to improve manuscript. We also
thank three anonymous referees for critical comments on
the previous version of this manuscript, which were helpful
in improving the manuscript.
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