Bulk Properties of Highly Polydisperse Particle Assemblies

Abstract

Pharmaceutical oral drug products often come in the form of highly polydisperse multi-component granular powders. Drug development is limited by experimental testing, making in silico methods a valuable alternative approach. To this end, a framework was developed using Discrete Element Method which simulates arbitrary assemblies at or below jamming density, of spherical frictionless particles. Analytic formulations for the component concentration homogeneity are compared against simulation results, where that of Stange proved to be more appropriate than Hilden. The packing fraction variability influences the content homogeneity. This variability was then compared to that of a packing model, and show some proportionality, though requiring further work to model one through the other. A simulation scale should have been formulated through a maximum packing fraction variability and content inhomogeneity, as its lack was visible due to its effect on the content homogeneity.