Durometer

A durometer is a device that measures the hardness of materials, there are several procedures to carry out this measurement.

The most used are Rockwell, Brinell, Vickers and Microvickers. A normalized force is applied to a penetrating element, also normalized, which produces an imprint on the material. Depending on the degree of depth or size of the print, we will obtain the hardness.

Within each of these procedures, there are various combinations of loads and indenters, which will be used depending on the sample to be tested.

Operation of the durometer

To measure the hardness of materials, the durometer works as follows:

• Depending on the depth or size of the footprint obtained from this force application is how we will know the degree of hardness of the material.

This way you can know the shear resistance of the surface of the analyzed material and different types of durometers are used, among which we find those explained above.

Uses and applications

The most common use of the durometer in the pharmaceutical industry is the measurement of the resistance and hardness of pills and capsules to verify that they can withstand the production, packaging, distribution and sale process, also to ensure that the hardness of the medication allow it to disintegrate within the body or be easy to chew.

In industries such as construction and metal, it is about measuring the hardness and resistance of the materials with which it is to be built to guarantee that they meet certain safety and quality standards.

In the pharmaceutical industry

They are used to measure the breaking strength of tablets and lozenges as a quality assurance measure. There are manual, semi-automatic and automated durometers. The tablets must have an optimal hardness, for example tablets with a higher hardness may not be absorbed in the patient's gastrointestinal tract. The most used durometers in the pharmaceutical industry are Dr. Schleuniger and Pharmatest produced in Switzerland and Germany respectively.