Abstract-Estimation of Young's modulus of pharmaceutical tablet obtained by terahertz time-delay measurement.

Peiponen KE1, Bawuah P2, Chakraborty M2, Juuti M3, Zeitler JA4, Ketolainen J5.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25934425

• 1Institute of Photonics, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland. Electronic address: kai.peiponen@uef.fi.
• 2Institute of Photonics, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland.
• 3Photonics Devices and Measurement Solutions, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
• 4Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RA, United Kingdom.
• 5School of Pharmacy, Promis Centre, University of Eastern Finland, P. O. Box 1617, FI-70211, Kuopio, Finland.

In this paper, it is suggested that Young's modulus of pharmaceutical tablets with different porosity can be estimated from terahertz (THz) pulse time delay. We demonstrate such a possibility using a training set of tablets compressed from starch acetate. Once the mechanical properties are taught to the THz measurement system, using an ideal tablet as a reference, it is possible to get information about the Young's modulus of the tablet. Here we show that there are optical counterparts of classical mechanical laws that couple the Young's modulus and porosity of the tablet.

Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.