[learn_more caption=”Cetin Cetinkaya, Ph.D.”] Prof. Cetinkaya received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 1986, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Currently, he is a professor of mechanical engineering at Clarkson University. Dr. Cetinkaya is the director of the Photo-Acoustics Research (PAR) Laboratory, and the co-director of the Nanomechanics/Nanomaterials (NN) Laboratory at Clarkson University. Specific applications areas of the projects at the laboratories include the mechanical property characterization of drug tablets and pharmaceutical materials, transdermal drug delivery, nano/micro-particle adhesion and removal, nondestructive evaluation of pharmaceutical materials, and design/testing/evaluation of small-scale structures. The PAR and NN laboratories have received research funds from the National Science Foundation, Intel, SEMATECH, Xerox Corp., Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Inc., Consortium for the Advancement of Manufacturing in Pharmaceuticals (CAMP), Praxair/Electronics, the US Army, as well as Center for Advanced Materials Processing (CAMP) at Clarkson. He is an ASME Fellow, and is serving as a guest editor for special issue entitled “Manufacturing Performance of Solid Dosage Forms (Powders, Tablets and Capsules” for the International Journal of Pharmaceutics. His research areas include acoustic and thermoelastic wave propagation, acoustic MEMS devices, laser-based nondestructive testing/evaluation, nano/micro-particle adhesion and removal, and monitoring manufacturing processes.[/learn_more]

The effects of mechanical (physical) properties of drug tablets on their therapeutic and structural functions have been reported by various researchers and practitioners. For example, it has been known that the Young’s modulus of a material compacted into solid dosage can often be related to its mechanical hardness, and hard tablets may impact disintegration time and thus the release rate of the medicament in the digestive track, potentially effecting therapeutic response. Also, mechanical properties of coating layers play a key role in drug bioavailability, stability and shelf life of a tablet.  Cracked or damaged coating could subject the patient to hyper therapeutic levels of drug. With the advent of new solid dosage types such as osmotic pumps, push-and-pull and multi-layered tablets, the mechanical structures of some tablet forms have become quite complex, and, consequently, the testing and monitoring requirements of such delivery devices are often more demanding and critical than those for traditional compacts. A novel, real-time, in-die technique based on ultrasonic excitation and sensing will be introduced and its potential uses in characterization, testing and defect monitoring of tablets will be discussed.