Résumé
Flavour release during eating of a food depends upon many parameters that can hardly be managed. In-vivo measurements by the APCI MS-nose method allowed temporal sensory evaluation and flavour release data to be directly correlated, but several limitations have frequently been reported. These were: high inter-individual variability, low repeatability of measurements, and weak experiment throughput due to panellists' exhaustion. To overcome most of these limitations, the use of an artificial mouth for online mesurement of flavour release is recommended. However, the systems used in previous reports were limited in terms of reproducing in-vivo oral functions and parameters. This paper introduces a newly designed chewing simulator, which reproduces as realistically as possible most of the physiological functions of the human mouth. The active part of the system is a dedicated cell, precisely tooled in a biocompatible and inert material, which is 3 axes fully actuated and computer driven. The cell is composed of several mobile parts that are able to reproduce accurately in real time shear and compression strenghts and tongue functions, according to in-vivo collected data. The flavour release can be on-line monitored by either APCI-MS or chemical sensors. On-line taste sampling is under development.