Viscoelastic properties of plastic fat products

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

An instrument is described for the creep analysis of plastic fat products. The instrument records the deformation of a sample under constant force. Deformation is sensed by a displacement transducer. Instantaneous elasticity, retarded elasticity and plastic flow can be calculated. The extent of instantaneous elasticity of plastic fat products was found to be dependent on loading time. At longer loading times, the instantaneous elasticity as a percentage of total deformation decreased, with a corresponding increase in permanent deformation. The effects of temperature, magnitude of force and work softening were investigated. The results are discussed in relation to the nature of the crystal network structure in plastic fat products.