When a customer is presented with an elongated or flat food sample, one of the first things they might do is snap it between their hands.
During this process, they are subconsciously assessing whether the food product is brittle or ductile, stiff or compliant, and strong or weak. Consequently, bend testing is a technique used very frequently by Texture Analyser users, covering everything from the snap of tablets to the toughness of dog chews.The analysis of this type of testing is often limited to looking at a force peak and maybe the distance to fracture. It is a very useful test for monitoring quality of irregular objects. However, this test setup can also provide useful stress-strain data if the sample has a uniform cross-section, providing accurate measurements are made of the sample dimensions. “Flexure” and “bending” have the same meaning and are often used interchangeably.
