A Research

Note

Characterization of the Ruggedness of Instant Coffee

Particle Shape by Natural Fractals
M. PELEG

and M. D. NORMAND

ABSTRACT
The ruggednessof individual instant coffee particle shapeswas quantified in terms of the natural Fractal dimension of the silhouettes
from their SEM micrographs. The latter was determined from the
slope of the Richardson plot covering the range between about 4 20% of the particles maximum length. The Fractal dimension in
this range was on the order of 1.05 to 1.2.
INTRODUCTION
ONE WAY TO ESTIMATE the perimeter length of an enclosed two-dimensional
contour (Fig. 1) is to construct a
polygon with sides having equal length and resembling the
shape of the original figure. The estimated perimeter
length (PLE) can simply be calculated from:
P LE=nL

(1)
where n is the number of sides (need not be a whole number) and L the selected side length.
Intuitively,
whenever the selected side length is smaller
the perimeter estimate becomes better until it approaches,
asymptotically,
the true perimeter length. It has been
discovered, however, that there are shapes for which the
perimeter length estimate increases indefinitely
as the
length of the polygon side decreases. In such a case, the
term perimeter
length either becomes meaningless or
ought to be understood within the bounds of an operational definition only. The classical example of such a case
is the length of a coastline and it is discussed in much detail
by Mandelbrot
(1983). The simplest means by which this
shape characteristic can be revealed is the Richardson plot.
The most primitive way to construct it is to follow the
contour by a compass with a fixed opening and count the
number of intersections as shown in Fig. 1. In order to
normalize the perimeter length, the compass span is presented as a fraction of the maximum
diameter of the
particle (D), also known as Ferets diameter (Kaye 1984a,
b). In this way a dimensionless perimeter (P) can be calculated as a function of a dimensionless length scale of the
polygon side (A) by:
P=nX

(2)

where again n is the number of sides.

The Richardson plot is the relationship 1nP vs lnh and it
can have different characteristics as shown in Fig. 1. The
slope of the line ((u in Fig. 1) is related to the natural Fractal dimension (6) of the contour (Mandelbrot, 1983) by:
6 = 1 + (tan (YI

(3)
rugged-

and can be considered as a measure of the contours

ness or roughness.
The term natural is added here to emphasize that this
is an empirical Fractal dimension and has meaning only
in a given range of Xs chosen or determined by physical

Authors
P&g
and Normand
are affiliated
with the Dept. of Food
Engineering,
Agricultural
Engineering
Building,
Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst,
MA 01003.

considerations. Thus, the Richardson plot of powder particles obtained from SEM micrographs cannot be extended
to X values below those of the microscopes resolution,
for example. Such an arbitrary limit may be incompatible
with the purely mathematical concept of a Fractal dimension which in principle can be applied to any range of
(positive) values of h, i.e., without a lower limit. Fig. 1
also demonstrates
the possibility
that a specific shape
can be characterized by more than one Fractal dimension
(e.g. 6 r, h2 etc.). In other words, the shape has different
features depending on the length scale at which it is examined. In such cases the critical step length (or lengths)
at which the change occurs (i.e., hc in Fig. 1) should also
be considered a typical shape characteristic (Kaye, 1984a, b).
The objective of this work was to assess the applicability
of the Richardson plot for determining the ruggedness of
agglomerated instant coffee particles and to test the usefulness of the natural Fractal dimension as a quantitative
shape index.
MATERIAL

& METHODS

Material

Commercial agglomerated instant coffees were purchased at a

local store. Particles (agglomerates) of these coffees, before and
after sieving, were coated, magnified and photographed using a
Scanning Electron Microscope. The micrographs so produced were
further enlarged until a particle image of about 10 x 15 cm was
obtained. Selected images and sieve size of the partciles analyzed
are shown in Fig. 2.
Construction

of the Richardson plot

The contour of the silhouette of selected images was traced by a

compass in the manner described in Fig. 1 with six different compass openings (h between about 0.04 and 0.2). The corresponding
dimensionless perimeter length was calculated using Eq. (2) and the
Richardson plot was constructed in a manner described by Kaye
(1981; 1984a, b). In selected images the process was repeated with
three randomly chosen starting points along the particle contour.
RESULTS

8~ DISCUSSION

THE IMAGES and Richardson plots of four instant coffee

agglomerates are shown in Fig. 2. These show that for the
range of the selected hs, i.e., for 0.04 <h < 0.2, the scatter
of the data was noticeably higher than that reported for
other objects (compare Kaye, 1984a, b, for example).
This was primarily a result of the relatively high magnitude
of the Xs used and to a much lesser extent, a result of human error in recording the results. This is particularly evident in the plots whiere data obtained with different starting points are shown (Fig. 2, C-D). In these it is unmistakably clear that the reproducibility
of the perimeter length
readings improved considerably by reducing the magnitude
of A. Despite the scatter, however, the Fractal nature of
the particles contour shape could be easily detected from
the Richardson plots. Statistical analysis of the present and
additional data only strengthens this view. Also, the distribution of the residuals after linear regression was clearly
random, revealing no evidence of inherent curvature in the
plots. It appears, therefore, that the assumption of linearity
Volume

50 (1985)-JOURNAL

OF FOOD

SCIENCE-829

-A

x = 0.2D = 0.2
D

x = -O.ID = 0.1
D

P = 12.5 x 0.2 = 2.5

P= 45 x 0.1 = 4.5

SMOOTH

E
RUGGED
\

SMOOTH

MAGNIFIED
CONTOUR

PARTICLE

5J
4

6=1
a>1

ii
E
z
%
a.
E

a
\

In X,

In X ( ARB t TRARY SCALES) I

Fig. l-Schematic
view of the construction
of the Richardson
plot by a structured
walk with a compass (A, B) and three different
kinds of
plots indicating
different
types of ruggedness
(C, D, EI. D is the Ferets diameter,
h the dimensionless
polygons
side, P the dimensionless
perimeter length, Q: the slope of the Richardson
plot and 6 the natural Fractal dimension
of the contour.
830-JOURNAL

OF

FOOD

SCIENCE-Volume

50

(1985)

RUGGEDNESS OF INSTANT

0.9 1
-3.3

COFFEE..

I
-2.7

-2.1

-1.5

In X.^
Fig. P-SEM
micrographs
of four instant coffee agglomerates
and their corresponding
Richardson
plots (A, B, C, 0). Note the scatter pattern
when the structured
walk started at three different
locations
on the contour
(C., 0). The sieve size of the particles
was over 2.35 mm for A,
between
1.70 and 2.36 mm for B, between 0.595and
1.70 mm for C and below 0.595 mm for D.
is justified and that the slope of the Richardson plot indeed carried information
pertinent to the ruggedness of the
particles silhousette.
Implications

and limitations

The procedure to determine the Fractal dimension by

the compass method is simple in principle but cumbersome
in practice. It requires concentration
and repetitive work,
which makes it unsuitable for processing a large number of
images. Furthermore,
its applicability is limited to relatively
high values of h, i.e. to ruggedness or roughness on a relatively large scale because of practical considerations.
Although the image itself can be enlarged by optical or other
means to reveal finer details, this will require more steps
with the compass leading to fatigue and eventually to
errors. It is hoped that this difficulty will soon be overcome
by applying computer image analysis techniques currently
under development
by this group. Such techniques, however, need not be based on simulation of the structured
walk with a compass and they may involve alternative principles to yield the same information.
This work, therefore, should only be looked upon as a
demonstration
of the applicability
of the Richardson plot
to characterize a particles ruggedness and the methods
ability to discriminate
between degrees of ruggedness at
the level of the selected length scale. It is quite obvious
that on a much smaller scale (see Fig. 2D for example)
the particles appear to be quite smooth, or in other words
their silhouettes have a natural Fractal dimension 6 z 1.0.
The question of whether this is an inherent characteristic

of instant coffee particles or merely a result of uncontrolled

moisture sorption can only be answered by examining a
micrograph
of freshly spray-dried particles immediately
after agglomeration.
Furthermore,
the analysis only deals
with the contour of a particles projection
or silhouette,
totally ignoring holes and the surface texture.
Although ruggedness in the latter is usually reflected in the
shape of the projection this need not always be the case.
All this, however, does not mean that the information
that
is revealed by the method is inherently
deficient. On the
contrary, it is quite plausible that the intensity of mechanical attrition of instant coffee particles is related to ruggedness on the very scale at which the procedure is applicable
and where the natural Fractal dimension of the silhouette
was found to be a sensitive index.
REFERENCES
Characterization
of Fine Particles.
John
Kaye, B.H. 1981. Direct
Wiley & Sons, New York.
Kaye, B.H. 1984a. Multifractal
description
of rugged fine particle
profile. Particle characterization.
1. (in press).
Kaye, B.H. 1984b.
Fractal
description
of fine particle
systems in
N dimensional
space. Paper presented at the Nurnberg
Conference
on the characterization
of fine particles.
Nurnberg.
May.
Mandelbrot.
B.B. 1983. The
Fractal
aeometrv
of Nature.
W.H.
Freeman and Co., New York.
Ms received 10/l/84;
revised l/l/85;
accepted l/17/85.
The project has been supported
by the NSF Particulate
and Multiphase Program
(Project
No. CPE 8206766)
in cooperation
with
General Foods Corporation.
The authors express their thanks to Dr. Robyn Rufner for producing the SEM micrographs,
to Mr. Britton
D.F. Miller for technical
assistance. and to Mr. Richard J. Grant for his araohical
aid.

Volume

50 /1985)-JOURNAL

OF FOOD

SCIENCE-831