If you need a shear tester, the Volution Powder Flow Tester (VFT) is the one to get. The VFT offers the following advantages over other other powder shear testers on the market:
Low Cost: The VFT is very affordable compared to other shear testers. The reason is that we designed the instrument ourselves. We do not pay university licensing fees or royalties because we designed it using our 20 years of experience in the powder flow business. We also did not use external engineering companies which further reduces our costs. These savings are passed on to users.
Large Pressure Range - Due to our heavy duty frame and drive system, the VFT can deliver up to 50 kg of vertical force. That's about 6 times more than competing instruments.
Automatic Sample Weighing: The VFT weighs the sample automatically during the measurement eliminating the need for an external balance and the time required to weight the sample.
Normal Load Correction Due To Sample Density: The VFT automatically adjusts the normal force applied to the sample lid to correct for the force from the powder mass above the shear zone. This is very important for dense powders. Other systems do not make this adjustment resulting in shear force that are artificially high.
True Time Testing: The analysis cells of the VFT can be removed and kept under load off of the instrument. This means time tests can be performed while other samples are being run on the instrument. Other shear testers have no capability to run time tests or you must leave the sample on the instrument for hours and hours so no other testing can be done.
Can Test Powders and Granular Materials : Due to the geometry of the test cell, the Volution can test both powders and granular materials. Other shear testers cannot. The reason is that the dimensions of the test cells for other instruments are too small to allow large particles to be measured. It is generally recommended that a layer of a minimum of 20 particles separate shear planes from cell edges. Some cells are not deep enough. Other cells have vanes will not allow large particles to enter or will only a thin layer.