ANNOTATION

The development of pharmaceutical tablets or other dosage forms includes an interesting design problem: what values of formulation parameters that define the tablet shape, structure and composition should be used? The release of an active ingredient (API) from the tablet must follow a prescribed dissolution curve that relates the released amounts of API to particular times. The tablet characteristics determine the course of tablet disintegration and dissolution. Therefore it can be said that a particular dissolution curve is linked with particular formulation parameter values. However, in order to find the appropriate values of these parameters, numerous experiments are required. A reliable methodology, able to simulate the process of tablet disintegration into fragments followed by individual fragments dissolution, can be used to predict the dissolution curve and therefore to reduce the number of experiments required during testing and development of new pharmaceutical products. The goal of the present diploma thesis will be the development of such simulation tools and to study the effect and sensitivity of numerous parameters on tablet disintegration and the resulting dissolution curve.