With the technological development in biologically orientated industries more and more natural products in powdered form are being handled and processed. Three differently comminuted liquorice rhizome products were classified into 23 narrow size fractions to investigate the particle and bulk characteristics of the material, and to study the influence of particle shape on powder flowability. The morphology of the fibrous particulate was investigated by using a Quantimet 720 Image Analyser. The perimeter (P), projected area (A), breadth (B), length (L), horizontal and vertical projected lengths (P V and Pi) and the horizontal and vertical Feret diameters (FV FH) were measured from which four dimensionless shape factors were evaluated, [P2/47rA, PHxPV/A, L/B, FV/FH]. The surface texture of the particles was measured by fractal analysis. The influence of particle shape and size on the mean flow rate, coefficient of flow variation and flow uniformity were measured using a specially designed inclined tube flowmeter. The failure properties of powdered liquorice when sheared under known normal compressive stresses were measured and from a series of yield loci the unconfined yield strength, major consolidation stress and effective angle of internal friction were obtained. The effects of particle shape and size on the angle of internal friction, wall friction, bulk and packed densities were. investigated and the experimental correlations expressed in terms of mathematical equations. These relationships, together with the failure function plots, indicate that comminuted liquorice powder behaves as a "simple" powder.

With the technological development in biologically orientated industries more and more natural products in powdered form are being handled and processed. Three differently comminuted liquorice rhizome products were classified into 23 narrow size fractions to investigate the particle and bulk characteristics of the material, and to study the influence of particle shape on powder flowability. The morphology of the fibrous particulate was investigated by using a Quantimet 720 Image Analyser. The perimeter (P), projected area (A), breadth (B), length (L), horizontal and vertical projected lengths (P V and Pi) and the horizontal and vertical Feret diameters (FV FH) were measured from which four dimensionless shape factors were evaluated, [P2/47rA, PHxPV/A, L/B, FV/FH]. The surface texture of the particles was measured by fractal analysis. The influence of particle shape and size on the mean flow rate, coefficient of flow variation and flow uniformity were measured using a specially designed inclined tube flowmeter. The failure properties of powdered liquorice when sheared under known normal compressive stresses were measured and from a series of yield loci the unconfined yield strength, major consolidation stress and effective angle of internal friction were obtained. The effects of particle shape and size on the angle of internal friction, wall friction, bulk and packed densities were. investigated and the experimental correlations expressed in terms of mathematical equations. These relationships, together with the failure function plots, indicate that comminuted liquorice powder behaves as a "simple" powder. / Darou-Pakhsh Pharmaceutical Company

Permeability is an important property of a porous medium and it controls the flow of fluid through the medium. Particle characteristics are known to affect the value of the permeability. However, experimental investigation of the effects of these particle characteristics on the value of permeability is time-consuming while analytical predictions have been reported to overestimate it leading to inefficient design. To overcome these challenges, there is the need for the development of new models that can predict permeability based on input variables and process conditions. In this research, data from experiments, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and literature were employed to develop new models using Multivariate Regression (MVR) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Experimental measurements of permeability were performed using high and low shear separation processes. Particles of talc, calcium carbonate and titanium dioxide (P25) were used in order to study porous media with different particle characteristics and feed concentrations. The effects of particle characteristics and initial stages of filtration as well as the reliability of filtration techniques (constant pressure filtration, CPF and constant rate filtration, CRF) were investigated. CFD simulations were also performed of porous media for different particle characteristics to generate additional data. The regression and ANN models also included permeability data taken from reliable literature sources. Particle cluster formation was only found in P25 leading to an increase of permeability especially in sedimentation. The constant rate filtration technique was found more suitable for permeability measurement than constant pressure. Analyses of data from the experiments, CFD and correlation showed that Sauter mean diameter (ranging from 0.2 to 168 μm), the fines ratio (x50/x10), particle shape (following Heywood s approach), and voidage of the porous medium (ranging from 98.5 to 37.2%) were the significant parameters for permeability prediction. Using these four parameters as inputs, performance of models based on linear and nonlinear MVR as well as ANN were investigated together with the existing analytical models (Kozeny-Carman, K-C and Happel-Brenner, H-B). The coefficient of correlation (R2), root mean square error (RMSE) and average absolute error (AAE) were used as performance criteria for the models. The K-C and H-B are two-variable models (Sauter mean diameter and voidage) and two variables ANN and MVR showed better predictive performance. Furthermore, four-variable (Sauter mean diameter, the x50/x10, particle shape, and voidage) models developed from the MVR and ANN exhibit excellent performance. The AAE was found with K-C and H-B models to be 35 and 40%, respectively while the results of using ANN2 model reduced the AAE to 14%. The ANN4 model further decreased the AAE to approximately 9% compared to the measured results. The main reason for this reduced error was the addition of a shape coefficient and particle spread (fine ratio) in the ANN4 model. These two parameters are absent in the analytical relations, such as K-C and H-B models. Furthermore, it was found that using the ANN4 (4-5-1) model led to increase in the R2 value from 0.90 to 0.99 and significant decrease in the RMSE value from 0.121 to 0.054. Finally, the investigations and findings of this work demonstrate that relationships between permeability and the particle characteristics of the porous medium are highly nonlinear and complex. The new models possess the capability to predict the permeability of porous media more accurately owing to the incorporation of additional particle characteristics that are missing in the existing models.

This thesis presents numerical optimization of geometries of axially symmetric ion trap mass analyzers. The motivation for this thesis is two fold. First is to demonstrate how the automated scheme can be applied to achieve geometry parameters of axially symmetric ion traps for a desired field configuration. Second is, through the Geometries investigated in this thesis, to present practically achievable geometries for mass spectroscopists to use. Here the underlying thought has been to keep the design simple for ease of fabrication (with the possibility of miniaturization) and still ensure that the performance of these analyzers is similar to the stretched geometry Paul traps. Five geometries have been taken up for investigation: one is the well known Cylindrical ion trap (CIT), three are new geometries and the last is the Paul trap under development in our laboratory. Two of these newer geometries have a step in the region of the midline of the cylindrical ring electrode (SRIT) and the third geometry has a step in its endcap electrodes (SEIT). The optimization has been carried out around deferent objective functions composed of the desired weights of higher order multiples. The Nelder-Mead simplex method has been used to optimize trap geometries. The multipoles included in the computations are quadrupole, octopole, dodecapole, hexadecapole,ikosipole and tetraikosipole having weights A2, A4, A6, A8, A10 and A12, respectively.Poincare sections have been used to understand dynamics of ions in the traps investigated. For the CIT, it has been shown that by changing the aspect ratio of the trap the harmful ejects of negative dodecapole superposition can be eliminated, although this results in a large positive A4=A2 ratio. Improved performance of the optimized CIT is suggested by the ion dynamics as seen in Poincare sections close to the stability boundary. With respect to the SRIT, two variants have been investigated. In the first geometry, A4=A2 and A6=A2 have been optimized and in the second A4=A2, A6=A2 and A8=A2 have been optimized; in both cases, these ratios have been kept close to their values reported for stretched hyperboloid geometry Paul traps. In doing this, however, it was seen that the weights of still higher order multipole not included in the objective function, A10=A2 and A12=A2, are high; additionally, A10=A2 has a negative sign. In spite of this, for both these configurations, the Poincare sections predict good performance. In the case of the SEIT, a geometry was obtained for which A4=A2 and A6=A2 are close to their values in the stretched geometry Paul trap and the higher even multipole (A8=A2, A10=A2 and A12=A2) are all positive and small in magnitude. The Poincare sections predict good performance for this con¯guration too. Direct numerical simulations of coupled nonlinear axial/radial dynamics also predict good performance for the SEIT, which seems to be the most promising among the geometries proposed here. Finally, for the Paul trap under development in our laboratory, Poincare sections and numerical simulations of coupled ion dynamics suggest a stretch of 79:7% is the best choice.