Blade and saw cutting
Cutting food products

To understand the principles of cutting, we often start with a simple case, known as "static cutting", in which a blade penetrates vertically into a homogeneous product of thickness e. The phenomena that come into play in this case result from the application of a force (F ) on the blade. The phenomena involved result from the application of a force (F ) to the blade. This force is distributed over the various faces of the blade: the cutting edge, the bevelled faces and the side faces (N₁ , N₂ , N₃ , N₄ , T₁ , T₂ , T₃ , T₄ ) (figure 1).

The ratio of forces to surfaces creates stresses which are transmitted to the material and generate deformations around the blade (figure