Introduction: Food service and laundry system appliances are characterized by an intense use in harsh environments; therefore, they need to communicate, through materials sensorial attributes, robustness and reliability. During their lifetime, professional appliances face specific chemical compatibility problems related to daily contact with food chemicals and detergent compounds compliance, and to misuse practices. For this reason, they are developed on one hand through a performance driven technical design process, and on the other through a sensorial-oriented materials selection, to improve the user experience with the product. Materials and methods: The research focuses on the integration of durability and sensorial properties in the materials selection method applied to professional appliances. As regards durability, the current quick preventive selection is based on nominal information, which is not strictly linked to time and degradation. Degradation may take place in professional food processing appliances through interaction among materials, detergents and food chemicals. The result is failure mechanisms that influence the component service life. Other external parameters, like temperature and pressure, can further change materials durability, and require “made-to-measure” life-testing solutions to simulate the real appliances use, based on DOE approach to optimize the experimental set up and correlate failures to the conditions from which they are generated. The evaluation of expressive-sensorial properties of materials represents one of the most complex issues in materials selection. In order to communicate high quality, robustness, strength, reliability, and easy cleanability of professional products, material selection has been currently based on experience, taking as a reference material stainless steel. In order to evaluate different material alternatives by more concrete and comparable results, Sensory Evaluation Analysis techniques from food quality field, as the “Napping ®” and “Sorting” tests, have been selected to translate sensorial properties of materials in a numerical system (numerical ranking, material sensory profile). Results: The comparison between qualitative and quantitative properties of materials allows also evaluating the change in perception of aged materials after accelerated life-tests. Discussion: The study set the basis for the development of a new method of materials selection, used both by designers and engineers, specifically designed for food service and laundry system appliances, able to couple qualitative and quantitative properties of materials.

INTEGRATION OF DURABILITY AND SENSORIAL PROPERTIES IN THE MATERIALS SELECTION FOR PROFESSIONAL APPLIANCES

PISELLI, AGNESE;BASSO, MARGHERITA;DEL CURTO, BARBARA;DE NARDO, LUIGI
2016-01-01

Abstract

Introduction: Food service and laundry system appliances are characterized by an intense use in harsh environments; therefore, they need to communicate, through materials sensorial attributes, robustness and reliability. During their lifetime, professional appliances face specific chemical compatibility problems related to daily contact with food chemicals and detergent compounds compliance, and to misuse practices. For this reason, they are developed on one hand through a performance driven technical design process, and on the other through a sensorial-oriented materials selection, to improve the user experience with the product. Materials and methods: The research focuses on the integration of durability and sensorial properties in the materials selection method applied to professional appliances. As regards durability, the current quick preventive selection is based on nominal information, which is not strictly linked to time and degradation. Degradation may take place in professional food processing appliances through interaction among materials, detergents and food chemicals. The result is failure mechanisms that influence the component service life. Other external parameters, like temperature and pressure, can further change materials durability, and require “made-to-measure” life-testing solutions to simulate the real appliances use, based on DOE approach to optimize the experimental set up and correlate failures to the conditions from which they are generated. The evaluation of expressive-sensorial properties of materials represents one of the most complex issues in materials selection. In order to communicate high quality, robustness, strength, reliability, and easy cleanability of professional products, material selection has been currently based on experience, taking as a reference material stainless steel. In order to evaluate different material alternatives by more concrete and comparable results, Sensory Evaluation Analysis techniques from food quality field, as the “Napping ®” and “Sorting” tests, have been selected to translate sensorial properties of materials in a numerical system (numerical ranking, material sensory profile). Results: The comparison between qualitative and quantitative properties of materials allows also evaluating the change in perception of aged materials after accelerated life-tests. Discussion: The study set the basis for the development of a new method of materials selection, used both by designers and engineers, specifically designed for food service and laundry system appliances, able to couple qualitative and quantitative properties of materials.
2016
Materials selection, sensorial properties, durability, materials, professional appliances
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/993567
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