Brookfield Powder Flow Tester

Do you have powders that do not discharge reliably from storage hoppers/ silos, or powders that flow erratically through production/ processing lines?   Have you ever tried to calculate the costs of lost production resulting from poor powder flow?
If you suffer from powder flow problems the economically priced Brookfield Powder Flow Tester launched in Jan 2010 may be able to help you. 

Hopper/ silo flow problems usually occur because the converging angle and outlet size are incompatible with the flow properties of the cohesive powders they are used to store.  A powders cohesive strength is strongly influenced by the magnitude of the stress that it experiences during static storage.  However for a given powder the cohesion increases as the particle size reduces and or as the free moisture content increases (to the point of saturation).  

The Brookfield powder flow tester is a user-independent machine that, in trained but unskilled hands, can generate repeatable measurements of the flow properties of your powder and quantify the magnitude of the cohesive strength.  The tester requires a sample volume of 263cc, and the standard test times vary between 10 and 35 minutes, depending on the number of measurements taken.  The key measurement generated by the Powder Flow Tester is the approximate arching dimension, a measure of the minimum hopper outlet size required to ensure reliable gravity flow.

The measurements generated by the Powder Flow Tester can be used in a number of ways;

1.     If you are developing a new powdered product, it can be used to optimise the constituents of a blend, or evaluate changes in the particle size, moisture levels, on the flow properties.

2.    If you are purchasing raw materials or blends from suppliers on a lowest cost basis, it can be used to compare their relative flow properties so that good flowability can be factored into purchasing decisions.

3.    If you are in need of new processing equipment, it can be used to determine the geometry required for reliable gravity flow.