Patent ID: 8875591

Claim:
A method of measuring at least one rheological property of diamond particles used in the manufacture of polycrystalline diamond, the method comprising: providing a mixture batch of diamond particles including a plurality of unsintered diamond particles exhibiting agglomerates; measuring the at least one rheological property of the mixture batch of diamond particles exhibiting the agglomerates; correlating the at least one rheological property of the mixture batch of diamond particles with agglomeration of a portion of the plurality of unsintered diamond particles and amount of the plurality of unsintered diamond particles below a selected particle size; determining whether the at least one rheological property of the mixture batch of diamond particles is within an acceptable range of a target specification for the at least one rheological property; repeating the measuring, correlating and determining acts on the mixture batch of unsintered diamond particles over a period of time; and determining a variation in the at least one rheological property over the period of time to determine agglomeration as a function of time and thereby determine an acceptable shelf-life of the mixture batch.