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Enabling the paradigm of quality by design requires the ability to quantitatively correlate material properties and process variables to measureable product performance attributes. In this study, we show how heterogeneities in compacted ribbon densities quantitatively correlate to tablet mechanical properties. These density variations, which have been purposely modulated by internal and external lubrications, are characterized longitudinally and transversally by nondestructive ultrasonic and X-ray micro-computed tomography measurements. Subsequently, different transversal regions of the compacted ribbon are milled under the same conditions, and granules with nominally the same particle size distribution are utilized to manufacture cylindrical tablets, whose mechanical properties are further analyzed by ultrasonic measurements. We consider three different ribbon conditions: no lubrication (case 1); lubricated powder (case 2); and lubricated tooling (hopper, side sealing plates, feed screws, and rolls) (case 3). This study quantitatively reveals that variation in local densities in ribbons (for case 1) and process conditions (i.e., internal case 2 and external lubrication case 3) during roller compaction significantly affect the mechanical properties of tablets even for granules with the same particle size distribution. For case 1, the mechanical properties of tablets depend on the spatial location where granules are produced. For cases 2 and 3, the ribbon density homogeneity was improved by the use of a lubricant. It is demonstrated that the mechanical performances of tablets are decreased due to applied lubricant and work-hardening phenomenon. Moreover, we extended our study to correlate the speed of sound to the tensile strength of the tablet. It is found that the speed of sound increases with the tensile strength for the tested tablets.

Abstract. A noncontact/nondestructive air-coupled acoustic technique to be potentially used in mechanical property determination of bilayer tablets is presented. In the reported experiments, a bilayer tablet is vibrated via an acoustic field of an air-coupled transducer in a frequency range sufficiently high to excite several vibrational modes (harmonics) of the tablet. The tablet vibrational transient responses at a number of measurement points on the tablet are acquired by a laser vibrometer in a noncontact manner. An iterative computational procedure based on the finite element method is utilized to extract the Young's modulus, the Poisson's ratio, and the mass density values of each layer material of a bilayer tablet from a subset of the measured resonance frequencies. For verification purposes, a contact ultrasonic technique based on the time-of-flight data of the longitudinal (pressure) and transverse (shear) acoustic waves in each layer of a bilayer tablet is also utilized. The extracted mechanical properties from the air-coupled acoustic data agree well with those determined from the contact ultrasonic measurements. The mechanical properties of solid oral dosage forms have been shown to impact its mechanical integrity, disintegration profile and the release rate of the drug in the digestive tract, thus potentially affecting its therapeutic response. The presented nondestructive technique provides greater insight into the mechanical properties of the bilayer tablets and has the potential to identify quality and performance problems related to the mechanical properties of the bilayer tablets early on the production process and, consequently, reduce associated cost and material waste.

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