Real-time acoustic elastic property monitoring of compacts during compaction

A nondestructive, real-time acoustic technique for determining elastic properties of compacts during compaction is presented. An acoustic time-of-flight study was conducted, and the extraction of the linear elastic properties of calcium carbonate compacts was demonstrated. To verify the results of the acoustic experiments, a uniaxial compaction investigation was also carried out using a computer-controlled press with an instrumented die. Good agreement between linear elastic properties determined using both acoustic experiments and compaction force-displacement data was observed. This technique has the potential to be used as a real-time compaction monitoring tool. © International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering 2008.