Ultrasonic Adhesion Measurement of Whey Protein Fouling

The knowledge of milk deposit adhesion is a prerequisite for setting innovative operating conditions of processing and strategies of cleaning. Unfortunately, these data are lacking because few methods of characterization of the adhesion quality exist. In this work, an ultrasonic method toward the quantification of the adhesion of a fouling dairy deposit onto a stainless-steel surface is proposed. The method is based on the investigation of the shear wave's reflection at the interface between deposit and substrates. First, the associated theory for quantifying adhesion by a reflection coefficient is introduced and the ultrasonic method proposed is briefly presented. Then, experiments led with glucose syrups of various viscosities and different substrates (glass and stainless steel) for validating the adhesion parameter values are described and results are compared to classical tests for measuring adhesion strength. Finally, some preliminary trials for measuring the adhesion of a whey protein fouling onto c...