Undesired foaming during high-speed filling of non-carbonated beverages is often observed in practice. To reduce foam formation, the filling dynamics must be adapted to the foaming capacity of the product which in turn reduces the output and economic efficiency of the filling line. The macroscopic stability of these undesired foams is determined by morphological properties of the foam, e.g. the bubble size distribution. At the same time, the entrainment and dispersion of the gas phase in the product is affected by the filling dynamics and the product’s material properties. The present contribution deals with the measurement of the morphology of foams arising during the bottling of fruit juices. For this, industrial bottling pro-cesses are reproduced in the lab and the forming foams are characterized in real-time with an inline measurement technique which yields 2D photo optical visuals. Automatic image analysis is applied to analyze the shape and size of foam bubbles and determine size distri-butions with respect to space and time. The results allow conclusions concerning the effect of the volume flow and product properties on the morphology of the foam and provide a basis for the development of actuators for the active control of foaming.
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