CFD Expands Footprint into Pharmaceutical Production

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Change Is on the Horizon

The Sector Manager explained that CFD is already being used in the pharmaceutical industry but to a far lesser extent than, for example, in the automotive industry where Debus says that virtually “no mirror is changed without the aid of simulation”. In this particular aspect of process engineering, he claims that the pharmaceutical industry is 20 years behind the times.

However in the development world he sees signs that attitudes are changing. Pharmaceutical engineers are now spending more time fine tuning the process, and modeling and simulation are increasingly becoming the preferred methodologies. As is the case in many other industries, timing plays a major role in the introduction of new technologies, and Debus is convinced that the timing is right. “Things are changing, particularly when it comes to continuous manufacturing.”

Diagnosis of existing processes is currently a typical field of application. Is the system doing what is really intended? What was the root cause of a bad batch? Was localized overheating the problem? Maybe the blending process was not optimal for the particular product? CFD can provide the answers, but it is important to keep in mind that modeling and simulation are only as good as the correlation with the experiment. “Simulation, analytics and the experiment are the three vital elements of a good model,” explained Debus.

Software which is more user-friendly encourages use in traditional applications such as simulation of particle motion in a fluidized bed or modeling of the coating process. In this application, the residence time of tablets in the spray is measured, providing the basis for calculating the coating thickness. It is not yet possible to drill down to coating of individual items but the developers are working on that, said Debus.

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