New ways of characterizing flow properties of powders have been developed in POSTEC. The uniaxial tester for measuring compressive strength as a function of uniaxial consolidation is the most used tester that has been fully developed by POSTEC. Also a biaxial tester was developed in co-operation with University College London in the 1980-ies, and further developed by POSTEC in the 1990-ies. In addition to measuring flow functions, these testers are also used to characterize relations between stress and strain, both plastic and elastic deformations. Two PhD projects have been carried out using these testers.
A simple plane flow angle of repose tester was developed long time ago, and recently a new axially symmetric angle of repose tester has been built. Comparison between the two types of testers is currently going on. The angle of repose is measured for two situations, filling in a heap, which is the dynamic angle of repose, and discharge from a mass at rest, which is the static angle of repose.
A fully automated fluidization tester has been developed recently, allowing for controlled rate of increasing the air flow, showing effects that were not so easy to see with the old manual version.
As a part of the segregation research that has been carried out, various types of segregation testers have been developed, allowing for characterization of segregation tendencies of given powders.
