Rheological Behaviour of Butter at Large Deformations

Eleven traditionally produced butter samples were evaluated for rheological properties at large deformations by lubricated and nonlubricated uniaxial compression with varying sample geometries and compression rates, by stress relaxation in shear and creep experiments in compression at 5–20C each. Compression forces required to deform cylindrical samples in nonlubricated conditions were higher than in lubricated cases. Correction of shape changes in nonlubricated stress‐strain curves resulted in good agreement with lubricated experiments at low compression rates up to stress maxima or yielding. As frictional forces were relatively smaller at high deformation rates, lower stresses were obtained in nonlubricated conditions. Samples with higher height/diameter ratios showed more pronounced stress maxima. A biaxial extensional viscosity, ηbe, was computed for nonbrittle, soft samples. Typical slopes in logarithmic plots of viscosity against strain rate were approximately ‐1. At strains of about 0.01 creep compliance depended on compression stress. The average ratios of recovered to initial instantaneous compliance were between 0.31 and 0.59, and increased with sample temperature. A calculated ηBE from creep compression showed fair agreement with ηBE from static compression experiments. At comparable strains, a conversion of creep compliance to the stress relaxation modulus by an approximate method showed a good fit of experimental results.