Feature Article

The classical cyclone cut size model assumes discrete, non-agglomerating particles. Cohesive or moisture-sensitive fines can travel through a cyclone as agglomerates instead, which changes what a PSD result actually tells you about classifier performance.

Wood powder can bridge because fibrous particles mechanically interlock, because moisture increases [...]

Bulk-blended fertilizer fails in three recurring ways: segregation between straight materials of different size and density, hygroscopic caking in urea and ammonium nitrate under humidity cycling, and dust release during bagging. Each failure mode maps to a specific diagnostic test rather than a single generic powder check.

Vacuum conveying contains by default: any breach draws air inward rather than pushing powder out. That containment advantage comes with a fixed pressure budget, and filter design competes directly with conveying velocity for every millibar of available driving force.

Co-processing engineers particle morphology, density, and surface structure into a single composite excipient particle. Flow function and compactibility testing show what that buys formulators on continuous direct compression lines, and where it does not.

Copper reflects most near-infrared laser light and conducts absorbed heat away faster than almost any other engineering metal. GRCop-42's move into commercial powder catalogs shows how feedstock morphology, oxide content, and particle size distribution are being engineered around that problem rather than worked around it.

Cold spray coatings form only when particles clear a critical impact velocity, a threshold set by material properties, particle size and morphology, and native oxide condition. This article looks at what powder-side QC can flag before a spray trial, and where it stops short of predicting deposition efficiency.

Triboelectric separation turns contact electrification from a handling hazard into a deliberate sorting mechanism. This article covers how material pairs are selected by charge polarity, what feed moisture and particle size do to separation efficiency, and where the technique sits relative to density and optical sorting.

FDA's proposed hub-and-spoke registration rule treats geographically separate manufacturing units as one establishment. The registration paperwork is new; proving that blend uniformity, granulation endpoints, and moisture behavior actually match between sites is the older, harder problem.

Powder spreading in powder bed fusion is a recoater-powder interaction shaped by cohesion, particle size distribution, and particle shape. This article maps streaking, short-feeding, and layer non-uniformity back to their underlying mechanisms and separates powder-driven causes from blade wear and spreading speed.

As aerospace metal additive manufacturing capacity expands, more reused powder is going back into qualified builds. The virgin-to-reused blend ratio decision depends on PSD shift, satellite formation, and morphology drift, and cannot be settled by a single powder check disconnected from the part's stress state.

Dense-phase and dilute-phase pneumatic conveying create different particle contact mechanics, and the resulting attrition and segregation risk depends on velocity, solids loading ratio, and the powder's own attrition sensitivity, not on a fixed assumption about which mode is gentler.