Multiscale Finitie Element Modelling of pea starch-protein composites

Starchy extruded foods are considered as solid foam and their texture is defined by their structure and the mechanical properties of the cell-wall, or constitutive material. This material is envisioned as dense composite of starch and proteins. In addition to composition, the mechanical properties of these composites depend on their morphology, created during extrusion. In this context, the aim of our study is to determine the relationship between morphological features and mechanical properties of legume based starch-protein composites in glassy state, using experimental and finite element modelling (FEM) approaches. In this purpose, dense pea composites having various starch-protein morphologies were obtained by twin-screw extrusion of pea flour and blends of pea starch and protein isolates (SP). Microscopy study of these samples revealed that their morphology displayed protein aggregates embedded in an amorphous starch matrix. This microstructure can be described by several features, such as the median size of protein aggregates, and a protein-starch interface index (Ii) derived from their total perimeter and area. These morphological features depended on the extent of starch destructuration and of protein aggregations, which are controlled by material composition and specific mechanical energy (100< SME<2000 kJ/kg) during extrusion. Pea flour composites exhibited a brittle mechanical behavior, whereas rupture of SP blend composites occurred in the plasticity domain at higher breaking stress and strain. The impact of morphological features, in particular of Ii, was explained by the poor interfacial adhesion between pea starch and pea protein aggregates. Nanoindentation study showed that the starch and protein phases, and the interphase of the composites exhibited significantly different values of modulus, depending on their composition and transformation. These results fed the FEM mechanical modelling study, which indicated that the elastic-plastic constitutive law following Voce scheme represented adequately the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical behaviors of pea composites. The implementation of these laws on the meshed microstructure of pea composites allowed predicting their mechanical behavior at macroscopic scale. This work provides a solid basis for further development of predictive models of the texture of legume based extruded foods.