The effect of suction during die fill on a rotary tablet press

Die fill on a rotary tablet press involves complex powder flow phenomena. Conventional techniques for measuring flowability do not normally provide information that is directly relevant to the design of powder feed systems or to the selection of press parameters for the die filling process. Sinka et al. [I.C. Sinka, L.C.R. Schneider, A.C.F. Cocks, Measurement of the flow properties of powders with special reference to die fill, in: International Journal of Pharmaceutics 280 (1–2) (2004) 27–38] used an experimental shoe–die system to characterise the flow behaviour of pharmaceutical powders. A rigorous data analysis procedure was developed by Schneider et al. [L.C.R. Schneider, I.C. Sinka, A.C.F. Cocks, Characterisation of the flow behaviour of pharmaceutical powders using a model die–shoe filling system, in: Powder Technology (in press)] to evaluate the experimental results, however, when scaling the results to a rotary tablet press, the die fill efficiency was underpredicted by a factor of approximately 2, because the experimental system did not capture major features of the rotary press flow process. The suction effect, whereby the lower punch is moved downwards while the top of the die is exposed to powder in the feed system, is a key element of the process. In this note we describe the development of a model shoe–die system that allows the effect of suction to be investigated. The results demonstrate the improvement offered by suction and illustrate how a fundamental understanding of die fill phenomena could assist the selection of process parameters to maximise the operational speed of a rotary press.