ABSTRACT
In order to secure that a tablet, i.e., a porous specimen formed by confined compression
by moving punches, is elegant and that the correct dose of the drug(s) is administered,
a tablet must remain intact during handling between manufacturing and administration.
Tablets must thus resist attrition and fracturing and possess a certain mechanical strength
after formation. The mechanical strength is related to the micro-structure of the tablet,
i.e., the size and the orientation of the particles and pores forming the tablet and the
structure of the contacts formed between the particles that provides coherency. Other
important properties of a tablet that also must be controlled by the formulation scientist,
such as tablet disintegration and drug dissolution, will possibly also depend on the tablet
micro-structure. Thus, formulation or process factors that will change the mechanical
strength of a tablet will probably also have a parallel effect on other tablet properties.
Relationships between the mechanical strength and other relevant pharmaceutical prop-
erties of a tablet may in many cases be complex and will not be discussed in this chapter.
The inter-dependence between different properties of a pharmaceutical tablet should
however be a concern to the reader of this chapter.
