GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK – Freeman Technology was presented with the Richard S. Ladd Standards Development Award in San Antonio, TX, on January 11 by the ASTM D18 Committee on Soil and Rock. The award, presented to Tim Freeman, is in recognition of the time and extensive effort in developing the ASTM Standard Designation D7891 “Standard Test Method for Shear Testing of Powders Using the Freeman Technology FT4 Powder Rheometer Shear Cell.”

Tim Freeman, Managing Director of Freeman Technology, said, “We are thrilled to have received this prestigious award from ASTM in recognition of our efforts. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the Freeman team for their hard work and contribution to this project.”

ASTM D7891 details the apparatus and procedures for evaluating the incipient failure properties of a powder under consolidation, including the determination of parameters such as cohesion, unconfined yield strength and flow function.

The principles behind all shear cell testers remain largely the same. The FT4, however, overcomes many of the recognized challenges by providing an easy-to-operate instrument with a fully automated test procedure and an intuitive software interface. The system is optimized to generate reliable, repeatable results, even when working with materials that are widely acknowledged to be challenging, or when operating under demanding low stress conditions. In addition to the analysis of shear properties, the FT4 enables users to evaluate dynamic flow and bulk properties in order to understand how powders will behave across a wide range of conditions and in various unit operations.