Determining the influence of drum mixer parameters on the change in dough components concentration at the initial mixing stage

The object of this study is the process of mixing flour components and the liquid phase in a mixer. The research task is to analyze features of the technological process of dough mixing and establish regularities of uniform distribution of components based on theoretical and experimental studies of physical-mechanical, colloidal, and biochemical processes. Mathematical models and conceptual approaches have been proposed for modeling the transfer of flour components and liquid during dough mixing. A conceptual representation of an improved model of the first stage of dough mixing has been considered, taking into account the influence of design parameters of the drum working body and the multifaceted working chamber of the mixer and technological modes. Additionally, a modified equation was built for numerical modeling of the initial stage of mixing. This makes it possible to effectively calculate spatial variables and make preliminary predictions of the process dynamics. It has been established that the duration of interaction among components before the formation of a liquid-viscous structure is 60–65 seconds. At this step of the stage, it is important to enable high mixing intensity to achieve rapid and uniform distribution of components to ensure the required quality of the mixture. A feature of the results is the determination of the time and spatial parameters of the process, as well as the establishment of fundamental regularities of the pre-mixing stage. The proposed approaches could be used at the stages of design calculations to assess the efficiency of mixers and select their rational parameters, which would contribute to increasing the productivity and quality of the finished product