Estimation of Tavares Breakage Parameters Without Experimental Calibration

Question

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on implementing the Tavares breakage model in EDEM for a specific pharmaceutical API. Unfortunately, we do not have access to the required experimental facilities to perform single-particle impact tests or other calibration experiments needed to determine the breakage parameters.

I would like to ask for your advice:

Is there any alternative methodology to estimate or approximate the Tavares model parameters for a specific material without conducting full experimental calibration?

For example:

Can parameters be reasonably adapted from the literature for materials with similar mechanical properties?

Is there a recommended inverse calibration strategy using macroscopic data (e.g., PSD evolution)?

Has anyone successfully implemented a scaling or surrogate-based approach?

Any guidance or shared experience would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Fatemeh

Renan · Answer

Hi Fatemeh,

The breakage model is primarily designed to represent impact-driven fragmentation rather than quasi-static or slow compressive loading. Given the available options, the air gun test is therefore the more appropriate choice.

In the air gun setup, a high-speed camera can be used to measure the particle velocity immediately before and after impact with a wall. From these measurements, you can compute the kinetic energy loss during the collision.

Assuming that this dissipated energy is predominantly consumed by particle breakage (i.e., negligible losses to other mechanisms), it can be used as a proxy for the breakage energy.

By repeating the test over a range of impact velocities and tracking whether breakage occurs, you can construct a breakage probability curve as a function of impact energy. This curve can then be fitted to extract the model parameters, such as E50​ (the median breakage energy) and sigma (the distribution width).

Best regards,

Renan

Fatemeh Hosseini_22198 · Answer

Dear Stephen and Renan,

Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions.

I have found two possible experimental options available to me: an airgun test and a granule compressor-based test.

Could you please advise whether either of these tests could be used for calibration of the breakage model parameters in EDEM?

If yes, I would be very grateful if you could also guide me on how such tests could be used for calibration in practice.

Kind regards,

Fatemeh

Renan · Answer

Hi Fatemeh,

As Stephen mentioned, you could run a simulation using the energy tracking model and use the results to feed a population balance model.

The other option, as you've already mentioned, is to calibrate the breakage model parameters. In this case, you would run a small, lab scale test using the equipment you have at your disposal. Then you have to reproduce that test in EDEM and adjust the model parameters until the simulation results match the physical results. You can use HyperStudy to automate this process, but it would still take a long time as there are a lot of parameters in the breakage model.

Best regards,

Renan