Dynamic indentation analysis for flowability assessment of particulate materials

Understanding how powders move whether they are pharmaceutical ingredients, food items, or chemical products is one of the most complex challenges in industrial engineering. We often think of powders as static, but inside production machinery, they travel at high speeds, flowing through pipes and silos where they behave somewhere between a solid and a liquid. Traditional tests measure this behaviour under "quasi-static" conditions but not in dynamic regime. In this study it has been developed within the APTLAB laboratories at the University of Padova. We studied the behaviour of four very different materials: bicarbonate, ceramic, cellulose and wood sawdust by dropping small Crome-plated steel spheres (6 mm and 8 mm) onto them to simulate the impacts and pressures that occur in real process industries. The results revealed a dense pattern of interactions not visible to the naked eye. By compacting the powders before impact, their structure is strengthened, offering progressively greater resistance to the sphere’s penetration. This research goes beyond simply providing mathematical equations; it offers a practical and innovative approach to making production lines safer, more efficient, and free of time-consuming structural failures.