Effect of Vibration Characteristics of Skull in Mastication of Crispy Foods on Food Texture

Abstract

It is important to clarify characteristics of sounds in mastication of foods because the food texture is affected by them. This study deals with food texture of crispy foods focusing on two types of chewing sounds in eating the foods, which are air conduction sound and bone conduction sound. Five kinds of snack foods were used for this study. Air conduction sound was recorded from microphones and bone conduction sound around cheekbones was measured with a headphone-like instrument in which acceleration sensors were embedded. The two types of sounds were analyzed by FFT and power spectra were obtained. Finite element models were also applied for examining vibration characteristics of human skull. The computational results of modal analysis show that size of human skull affects bone conduction sound, which was identified as different power spectra from experimental data of an adult and a child. These results suggest that biomechanical factor of skull affects eating quality of foods. 1