EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Model-informed optimization of compaction parameters and tooling design for multi-tip compaction tooling

The powder compaction process is commonly used to turn loose powder into a solid form. During this process, fine powder particles are placed into a mold and then pressed together using a machine. Pressure is applied to compress the powder into a solid shape.

Powder compaction is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry to produce tablets. When compacting smaller tablets, multiple tablets can be made simultaneously in a single compaction cycle using multi-tip tooling, which contains more than one mold. However, the compaction process becomes increasingly challenging as the size of the tablets decreases, especially with the use of multi-tip tooling.

This research investigates how laboratory-generated data can be combined with computational modeling to produce high-quality tablets. Specifically, the study will use computational modeling to simulate how powders behave within the mold and assess the impact of multi-tip tooling design on tablet quality. The goal is to facilitate the use of smaller tablets in personalized medicine to advance national health.

Additionally, this project supports education and diversity by training graduate and undergraduate students, including those from underrepresented minorities and women.

The use of multi-tip tooling enables the compaction of multiple products simultaneously in a single cycle, offering significant efficiency gains. Multi-tip tooling is especially promising for producing small-sized, high-volume components with simple geometries, such as pharmaceutical mini-tablets. However, this advancement introduces new challenges in optimizing process parameters, as the configuration of multi-tip tooling differs significantly from traditional tooling setups.

To fully capitalize on the potential gains from using multi-tip tooling, a thorough understanding of both the formulation and tooling configurations is essential. This project aims to use experimentally validated numerical analysis with the Discrete Element Method to gain fundamental insights into the micromechanical behavior of powders when used with multi-tip tooling, focusing on both formulation and tooling design aspects.

This EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII): EPSCoR Research Fellows project would provide a fellowship to an assistant professor and training for a graduate student at the University of Iowa. Our goal is to obtain accurate, realistic, and computationally efficient estimations to guide the rational selection of compaction parameters, considering both the powder micromechanical behavior and tooling design.

The proposed research will yield substantive new knowledge with respect to the use of multi-tip tooling for powder compaction and provide a powerful tool for designing multi-tip tooling with applications in many technological areas. Thus, the knowledge generated by this study has far-reaching implications that transcends the pharmaceutical industry, addressing a wider range of scientific challenges across various industries where powder compaction holds relevance.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.