Application Studies / Small Particles Tested Individually & Monolayers with TA-025 and TA-40A

Small Particles Tested Individually & Monolayers with TA-025 and TA-40A

Industry:

Food

Confectionery

Cereal

Attributes measured:

first peak

peak force

total work

fracturability

Background

Everyone who makes small particles asks for the best test method to explore the physical properties of their products. They also want to know whether particles should be tested individually, in a monolayer, or in bulk. Testing particles individually is time consuming and, unsurprisingly, highlights the variability inherent with products’ unique shapes. Testing monolayers can result in better reproducibility, but often at a trade-off of missing some insightful metric available when products are testing individually. Bulk testing is generally more informative about compressive behaviors and aggregate fracturability than the physical properties of the material. The common hope is that repeatability and thus differentiation will increase as sample size increases. This study addresses whether that is a reasonable expectation.