(18g) Compaction of Binary Particle Mixtures Using the Multi-Particle Finite Element Method (MPFEM)

The compaction behavior of powders is of significant interest in a number of industries including those that manufacture pharmaceuticals, consumer products, ceramics, and food products. Since the powders in these industries typically consist of a blend of components, it would be particularly useful to be able to predict the compaction behavior of a blend from the compaction behavior of the component materials. A number of researchers have attempted to develop such ?mixing rules?, but the models to date have either not captured experimentally observed trends, or require extensive experimental measurements.

This talk presents recent blend compaction studies using the multi-particle finite element method (MPFEM) approach. In MPFEM, the deformations of a large assembly of particles are modeled using FEM. This modeling approach has the advantage of being able to capture particle and continuum level behavior; however, this comes at significant computational cost. Studies investigating the continuum level properties for binary blends of varying concentration and particle size are presented and the model results are compared to experimental data.