LAUSR

Abstract The quality of potato chips is highly dependent on the mechanical properties of the dough sheet produced prior to frying. It has been well established that poor mechanical properties result in fragile dough sheets and associated high product wastage. However, the effect of the rolling process on the mechanical properties of the dough is unknown so the optimum rolling process can only be obtained via a trial and error approach. This work reports for the first time the effects of dry flake size and rolling parameters on the mechanical performance of potato dough sheets. The laboratory scale rolling setup used a 10 cm roller diameter with a 0.2 mm gap height. Furthermore, an experimental method was developed enabling rigorous tensile testing of fragile potato dough sheets. The mechanical performance of the potato dough sheets was anisotropic, as the Young's modulus and strength were 35% and 57% higher across the rolling direction than those along the rolling direction, respectively. The formability, i.e. the ability to form a coherent sheet of the potato dough is improved by using smaller dry flakes (