Abstract
Experimental viscoelastic data and the corresponding theoretical analysis of corn starch paste in the past 30 years indicate an evident deficiency of the viscoelastic characterization of the paste. The purposes of the study are to check the capability of a recent model on describing the viscoelasticity of the paste and to improve the viscoelastic analysis. The linear viscoelastic property; the steady shear viscosity and the first normal stress difference (N1) of a cross-linked waxy corn starch paste mixed with sucrose experimentally reported in 2003 were characterized with a structuralized viscoelastic constitutive equation in the present paper. The structuralized parameter f in the equation was obtained using the viscosities in the dynamic and steady shear experiment. Both a power law strain model and a linear strain model were proposed to describe the normal component in the strain matrix. Three kinds of viscoelastic properties of the paste can be described well with the structuralized equation. Both the power law and the linear strain model can yield reasonable calculations of N1. The maximum deviation of N1 calculated by two strain models is about 10%. The theoretical model adopted is available for describing the complex viscoelastic behaviors of corn starch paste usually appearing in the processing of corn starch.