Type | Chewing gum |
---|---|
Place of origin | United States |
Created by | Walter Diemer |
Invented | 1928 |
Bubble gum (or bubblegum) is a type of chewing gum, designed to be inflated out of the mouth as a bubble.
In modern chewing gum, if natural rubber such as chicle is used, it must pass several purity and cleanliness tests. However, most modern types of chewing gum use synthetic gum-based materials. These materials allow for longer lasting flavor, a softer texture, and a reduction in tackiness. [1]
As a sort of chewing gum consisting of long-chain polysaccharides, bubblegum can typically exhibit linear and nonlinear viscoelastic behaviors. [2] Therefore, the distinct deformations under chewing can be affected by shear rate, shear strain, and shear stress applied through teeth. [3] Based on these, it is helpful to characterize the intrinsic rheological properties of chewing gums for future improvement and optimization of commercial products’ texture and chewiness. [4]
The linear viscoelastic (LVE) property can be probed on pre-shaped gum cuds through a small isothermal strain deformation (i.e., below yield strain) under small amplitude oscillatory shear (SAOS). [3] Here the critical yield strain is defined as the modulus deviating about 10% from its initial value. Under it, gum cuds show elastic deformation that follows power-law behavior as a critical gel in the linear regime; otherwise, exhibiting nonlinear responses with increasing shear stress (plasticity). Normally, this yield strain is less than 1%. [3]
Regarding plastic deformation, the nonlinear viscoelasticity can be explored through shear creep experiments (relaxation time) and the start-up of steady shear stress-controlled uniaxial/biaxial extension. The former demonstrates that fractional recovery, defined as the ratio between measured strain after deformation and recovered strain without adding shear stress, for chewing gums under moderate shear stress (~ 1000 Pa) is between 25% and 40%. [3] This relatively high fractional recovery (the ability to recover its previous shape) is consistent with providing a satisfying sensory feel. On the contrary, bubble gums only show fractional recovery lower than 15%. Therefore, bubble gums can withstand more substantial stresses before break-up than normal chewing gums. This distinction is mainly due to its on-purpose design, which allows it to form and maintain large, stable bubbles when blown up through sizeable shear stress on the tongue. [3]
The stretching experiment shows gum cuds owning strain hardening during uniaxial extension. In particular, the LVE regime is absent with applying a constant Hencky strain rate, like the plastic flow in polycrystals or polymers. Moreover, different values of Hencky strain rates can lead to either extensional viscosity plateaus before sagging (macroscopic failure) or necking (strain hardening) following a low/high strain rate. Typically, the strain softening at a low strain rate manifests the disintegration of brittle networks within gums. In contrast, the nonuniform deformation of polymers and crystallization induced by strain explain the strain hardening behavior at a high strain rate. [3]
In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe, based on a formula for a chewing gum called "Blibber-Blubber", was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum and stretched more easily. This gum became highly successful and was eventually named by the president of Fleer as Dubble Bubble because of its stretchy texture.
This remained the dominant brand of bubble gum until after WWII, when Bazooka bubble gum entered the market. [5]
Until the 1970s, bubble gum still tended to stick to one's face as a bubble popped. At that time, synthetic bubble gum was introduced, which would almost never stick. The first brands in the US to use these new synthetic gum bases were Hubba Bubba and Bubble Yum.[ citation needed ]
Bubble gum got its distinctive pink color because the original recipe Diemer worked on produced a dingy gray colored gum, so he added red dye (diluted to pink), as that was the only dye he had on hand at the time. [6]
In taste tests, children tend to prefer strawberry and blue raspberry flavors, rejecting more complex flavors, as they say these make them want to swallow the gum rather than continue chewing. [7]
While there is a bubble gum "flavor" – which various artificial flavorings including esters are mixed to obtain – it varies from one company to another. [8] Esters used in synthetic bubble gum flavoring may include methyl salicylate, ethyl butyrate, benzyl acetate, amyl acetate or cinnamic aldehyde. [9] [ better source needed ] A natural bubble gum flavoring can be produced by combining banana, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves, and wintergreen. [10] Vanilla, cherry, lemon, and orange oil have also been suggested as ingredients. [9]
In 1996, Susan Montgomery Williams of Fresno, California, set the Guinness World Record for largest bubble gum bubble ever blown, which was 26 inches (66 cm) in diameter. However, Chad Fell holds the record for "Largest Hands-free Bubblegum Bubble" at 20 inches (51 cm), achieved on 24 April 2004. [11]
Bubblegum Alley is a tourist attraction in downtown San Luis Obispo, California, known for its accumulation of used bubble gum on the walls of an alley.
The Market Theater Gum Wall is a brick wall covered in used chewing gum, located in an alleyway in Post Alley under Pike Place Market in Downtown Seattle.
Rheology is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid state but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force. Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the deformation and flow of materials, both solids and liquids.
In physics and materials science, plasticity is the ability of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation, a non-reversible change of shape in response to applied forces. For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the material itself. In engineering, the transition from elastic behavior to plastic behavior is known as yielding.
In engineering and materials science, a stress–strain curve for a material gives the relationship between stress and strain. It is obtained by gradually applying load to a test coupon and measuring the deformation, from which the stress and strain can be determined. These curves reveal many of the properties of a material, such as the Young's modulus, the yield strength and the ultimate tensile strength.
In physics and materials science, elasticity is the ability of a body to resist a distorting influence and to return to its original size and shape when that influence or force is removed. Solid objects will deform when adequate loads are applied to them; if the material is elastic, the object will return to its initial shape and size after removal. This is in contrast to plasticity, in which the object fails to do so and instead remains in its deformed state.
The field of strength of materials typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the response of a structure under loading and its susceptibility to various failure modes takes into account the properties of the materials such as its yield strength, ultimate strength, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. In addition, the mechanical element's macroscopic properties such as its length, width, thickness, boundary constraints and abrupt changes in geometry such as holes are considered.
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its texture is reminiscent of rubber because of the physical-chemical properties of its polymer, plasticizer, and resin components, which contribute to its elastic-plastic, sticky, chewy characteristics.
Solid mechanics is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and other external or internal agents.
Hemorheology, also spelled haemorheology, or blood rheology, is the study of flow properties of blood and its elements of plasma and cells. Proper tissue perfusion can occur only when blood's rheological properties are within certain levels. Alterations of these properties play significant roles in disease processes. Blood viscosity is determined by plasma viscosity, hematocrit and mechanical properties of red blood cells. Red blood cells have unique mechanical behavior, which can be discussed under the terms erythrocyte deformability and erythrocyte aggregation. Because of that, blood behaves as a non-Newtonian fluid. As such, the viscosity of blood varies with shear rate. Blood becomes less viscous at high shear rates like those experienced with increased flow such as during exercise or in peak-systole. Therefore, blood is a shear-thinning fluid. Contrarily, blood viscosity increases when shear rate goes down with increased vessel diameters or with low flow, such as downstream from an obstruction or in diastole. Blood viscosity also increases with increases in red cell aggregability.
In materials science, creep is the tendency of a solid material to undergo slow deformation while subject to persistent mechanical stresses. It can occur as a result of long-term exposure to high levels of stress that are still below the yield strength of the material. Creep is more severe in materials that are subjected to heat for long periods and generally increases as they near their melting point.
In materials science and continuum mechanics, viscoelasticity is the property of materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation. Viscous materials, like water, resist both shear flow and strain linearly with time when a stress is applied. Elastic materials strain when stretched and immediately return to their original state once the stress is removed.
In continuum mechanics, the maximum distortion energy criterion states that yielding of a ductile material begins when the second invariant of deviatoric stress reaches a critical value. It is a part of plasticity theory that mostly applies to ductile materials, such as some metals. Prior to yield, material response can be assumed to be of a linear elastic, nonlinear elastic, or viscoelastic behavior.
Manfred Hermann Wagner is the author of Wagner model and the molecular stress function theory for polymer rheology. He is a Professor for Polymer engineering and Polymer physics at Technische Universität Berlin.
In solid mechanics, a shear band is a narrow zone of intense strain due to shearing, usually of plastic nature, developing during severe deformation of ductile materials. As an example, a soil specimen is shown in Fig. 1, after an axialsymmetric compression test. Initially the sample was cylindrical in shape and, since symmetry was tried to be preserved during the test, the cylindrical shape was maintained for a while during the test and the deformation was homogeneous, but at extreme loading two X-shaped shear bands had formed and the subsequent deformation was strongly localized.
Gum base is the non-nutritive, non-digestible, water-insoluble masticatory delivery system used to carry sweeteners, flavors, and any other substances in chewing gum and bubble gum. It provides all the basic textural and masticatory properties of gum.
Material failure theory is an interdisciplinary field of materials science and solid mechanics which attempts to predict the conditions under which solid materials fail under the action of external loads. The failure of a material is usually classified into brittle failure (fracture) or ductile failure (yield). Depending on the conditions most materials can fail in a brittle or ductile manner or both. However, for most practical situations, a material may be classified as either brittle or ductile.
In Earth science, ductility refers to the capacity of a rock to deform to large strains without macroscopic fracturing. Such behavior may occur in unlithified or poorly lithified sediments, in weak materials such as halite or at greater depths in all rock types where higher temperatures promote crystal plasticity and higher confining pressures suppress brittle fracture. In addition, when a material is behaving ductilely, it exhibits a linear stress vs strain relationship past the elastic limit.
Surface rheology is a description of the rheological properties of a free surface. When perfectly pure, the interface between fluids usually displays only surface tension. The stress within a fluid interface can be affected by the adsorption of surfactants in several ways:
Retardation is the delayed response to an applied force or stress and can be described as "delay of the elasticity".
Crystal plasticity is a mesoscale computational technique that takes into account crystallographic anisotropy in modelling the mechanical behaviour of polycrystalline materials. The technique has typically been used to study deformation through the process of slip, however, there are some flavors of crystal plasticity that can incorporate other deformation mechanisms like twinning and phase transformations. Crystal plasticity is used to obtain the relationship between stress and strain that also captures the underlying physics at the crystal level. Hence, it can be used to predict not just the stress-strain response of a material, but also the texture evolution, micromechanical field distributions, and regions of strain localisation. The two widely used formulations of crystal plasticity are the one based on the finite element method known as Crystal Plasticity Finite Element Method (CPFEM), which is developed based on the finite strain formulation for the mechanics, and a spectral formulation which is more computationally efficient due to the fast Fourier transform, but is based on the small strain formulation for the mechanics.
Peanut butter is a viscoelastic food that exhibits both solid and fluid behaviors. It consists of ground up peanuts and may contain additional additives, such as stabilizers, sugars, or salt. Its characteristic soft, spreadable texture can be further defined through rheology – the study of flow and deformation of matter, affecting texture, consistency, and mouthfeel. Specifically for peanut butter, rheology can be used to more accurately define characteristics, such as spreadability and grittiness.