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Troubleshooting Hub

Start with the problem
you can see, then work back
to the mechanism behind it

Find the route from visible symptom to likely cause

A symptom is not a diagnosis. Start with what you can observe, then use process location,
likely mechanisms, measurements, and relevant PTI guidance to narrow the cause before
changing the material or the process.

Start the selector
Browse the problem families

By observed problem

Start from the behavior you can see, then narrow the mechanisms that could produce it.

By industry

Start from the materials, process constraints, and failure modes that matter in your sector.

By process area

Start from the unit operation, equipment, and process context where the problem appears.

By test method

Start from the property or uncertainty you need a measurement to clearly resolve.

Find your route

Start with the problem, then the process area

Choose the closest problem family to what you can observe, then select where it is happening. The result names mechanisms worth separating, a useful first measurement route, the relevant problem page and supporting reading where PTI already has a strong article. It is a triage route, not a diagnosis.

1Problem
2Process area
3Route

Step 1 What are you seeing?

Choose the closest observable problem. The five specialist process problems are marked separately.

Step 2 Where is it happening?

Process location changes which mechanisms deserve priority, even when the visible symptom is the same.

Step 3 Your diagnostic route

Problem families

Start with the problem you can observe

Choose the closest problem family to what you can observe. Each page works from the visible behavior to the mechanisms worth separating, the measurements that can distinguish them, and the next diagnostic step.

Specialist process problems

Some failures are defined by the unit operation itself. These five specialist routes combine several master powder behaviors without forcing the process outcome beneath one family. Use them when the unit operation itself defines the failure, then return to the relevant master problems and measurements to separate the cause.

Technical routes

Continue from what you already know

Move directly into process or measurement routes when the diagnostic question is already clear. If the process used to work, first compare what changed before the symptom appeared.

Process areas

Storage, feeding, conveying, mixing, wet processing, forming, thermal processing, deposition, recovery and packaging.

Measurement routes

Choose the measurement by the uncertainty it must resolve, not by the symptom label alone in practice.

Guides & articles

Browse the full PTI content archive for technical articles, insights, Know-How guides, and other powder-processing resources.

Need the measurement, not just the guidance? PowderTechnology.info works closely with Delft Solids Solutions,
a contract research organization specializing in the physical behavior of powders and granules. DSS provides
contract testing and characterization, with its laboratory working in accordance with ISO 17025.
Contact Delft Solids Solutions.