Evaluation of ring shear testing as a characterization method for powder flow in small-scale powder processing equipment.

Powder flow in small-scale equipment is challenging to predict. To meet this need, the impact of consolidation during powder flow characterization, the level of consolidation existing during discharge of powders from a tablet press hopper and the uncertainty of shear and wall friction measurements at small consolidation stresses were investigated. For this purpose, three grades of microcrystalline cellulose were used. Results showed that powder flow properties depend strongly on the consolidation during testing. The consolidation during discharge in terms of the major principal stress and wall normal stress were approximately 200 Pa and 114 Pa, respectively, in the critical transition from the converging to the lower vertical section of the hopper. The lower limit of consolidation for the shear and wall friction test was approximately 500 Pa and 200 Pa, respectively. At this consolidation level, the wall and shear stress resolution influences the precision of the measured powder flow properties. This study highlights the need for an improved experimental setup which would be capable of measuring the flow properties of powders under very small consolidation stresses with a high shear stress resolution. This will allow the accuracy, precision and applicability of the shear test to be improved for pharmaceutical applications.