Measuring the propagating teeth vibration of human chewing

Abstract

We measured the propagation waves of teeth's vibrations when chewing food. The objective of this measurement is to find out the difference of perceived texture resulted from the difference of teeth alignment. Human senses teeth's vibrations caused by chewing food with periodontal membranes and regards it as texture. Therefore, measuring the teeth's vibrations will allow us to quantify the food texture which human actually senses. We fabricated an acoustic sensor that is small enough to be attached to teeth. For sensor evaluation, we conducted the rice cracker chewing test with our sensor attached to a real scale 3D jaw model, and propagation waves of around 500 Hz are observed.