An art review on the measurement of various agglomerate strengths in Japan, as the request of IFPRI, has been already reported on 20th April, 1982. The present paper deals with the experimental results of some agglomerate strengths for polymeric materials such as polypropylene of polyethylene particles. These agglomerates of polymeric particles were produced by hot fluidized beds at The City College of The City University of New York.
As indicated in the preliminary IFPRI report (Gabriel Tardos, Dominick Mazzone and Robert Pfeffer: Agglomeration of Particle Systems in Fluidized Beds - Phase 31, Tardos, G. et al. made a detailed investigation into the minimum sintering fluidization velocity necessary to keep a bed of sticky or agglomerated particles in the fluidized state. In this connection, three samples of agglomerated polymeric particles were sent from New York to Tokyo in order to obtain agglomerate strength data at several temperatures between 80 and 170°C.
Unfortunately, the usual strength testing procedure regarding a cylindrical agglomerate with the diameter/length ratio about half does not apply to three samples of agglomerated polymeric particles because of irregular shape. An advantage of agglomerate strength measurements in this work, for this reason, is that the presumed tensile strengths of the agglomerates can be calculated from experimental results of interparticle forces at temperatures ranging from 80 to 170°C. In addition to this measurement, a new method for measuring the breakage strengths of three samples in streams of hot air was introduced into this work.