Nowadays dry granulation of powders has become a very important research topic because it is the most economic way of granulation, making the particle handling easier, and avoiding the loss of material during particle processing, or particle transfers. This kind of process has been deeply studied but a better knowledge appears necessary to control the great number of parameters of the process. This is particularly important in cases where the nature of the powder may lead to very complex phenomena during compaction. In order to try and optimise dry granulation process for organic compounds, a roll press has been designed with a series of instruments enabling to control the compaction process. The apparatus consists of three parts: a vertical container with rotating steel blades avoiding arches into which the powder is poured, a feeder transferring the powder towards the rolls; the feeder is equipped with an horizontal helical screw in a cylindrical draft tube (10 mm in internal diameter, 500 mm long) and in the end of the feeder, a junction allows the change from the cylindrical symmetry of the feeder to the prismatic symmetry existing in the roll gap. The roll press (0-500kN, load per unit length 0-10(4) kN m(-1)) has been developed to record different major classical parameters: the roll speed, the roll gap, the press strength, the rotation angle, and the feeding rate (between 0 and 20 g s(-1)). In comparison with different kinds of roll press described in the literature, in this work an original instrumentation system has been developed to catch specific data. The 3D-pressure distribution profiles at the interface between powder and the roll wall and the drive torque applied to the rolls were measured. A large-sized smooth steel-made roll (240mm diameter, 50mm, width) has been chosen to compare the results to the industrial scale. The results obtained with an organic compound exhibited the dependence-sometimes unexpected-of the rotation angle, the feeding and the rotation speed on the pressure distribution, the roll width, and the drive torque. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.