Science of cutting multi-layer systems: an inspiration from our kitchens

The majority of us are familiar with the phrases cutting, slicing, and dicing from our culinary experiences. In this talk, we will explore the topic of cutting, specifically in kitchen, with an aim to leverage the physics to optimize the force exerted in the process. However, the majority of kitchen materials are complex, made up of several layers with various elastic moduli, fracture toughnesses, and relative thicknesses, such as the skin, pulp, and seeds of fruits and vegetables. So, using a multilayer system, we empirically record the force profiles when slicing and chopping a variety of fruits and vegetables in this study.

We also compare our experimental data with the existing force information available in the literature to estimate the optimum force by our experiments and compare to the existing data. A synthetic multilayer system with a soft to hard or hard to soft configuration has also been constructed and studies for force profile of cutting . Furthermore, we compare the outcomes with our experimental findings by theoretically modeling this system for cutting a heterogeneous system while taking into account the complexities of a multilayer system. We believe that this study will inspire future work in the mechanics of multilayer cutting in soft matter and soft robots’ development.