Development and application of a novel cake strength tester

Caking can cause many problems in industries during processing or storage of particulate materials. Caking magnitude depends on several factors, for instance temperature, consolidation stress and storage time. In this research paper, a novel force displacement and easy-to-use caking tester for measuring quantitatively cake strength as a result of elevated temperature, consolidation stress and storage time is introduced. The developed tester outweighed the conventional uniaxial unconfined failure caking tester due to the defined location of the failure plane to maximise repeatability, the necessity for a lower quantity of powder, maximised exposed surface and lower wall friction as well as production costs. The experimental design has been conducted by changing the temperature, consolidation stress and storage duration. The results showed that the tester could distinguish cake strength between different experimental conditions. A statistical model has been successfully developed to study the effect of each variable on the cake strength. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.