The effect of radial clearance and slope on the transmission capacity at the screw conveyor systems

Screw conveyor systems, designed by Archimedes for the first time 2200 years ago, have been used for the material handling of bulk material in various industrial areas. These systems, which has a significant place in these areas, have come into prominence with the development of technology and science in the popular world. By the help of including the theoretical calculations and formulations, software programs have been come into use at these systems. Nowadays, manufacturing companies that use conveyor systems have the necessary forecasting information about the material by having possibility to pre-model in the system where they are using the material to be conveyed by using these software programs. Thus, the theoretically calculated mechanisms can be allowed in order to make the necessary optimization in the computer environment before applied as a trial and error method in the practice. Especially taken into consideration the variety of systems and materials, the prominence of these software programs arises. In these systems, as the theoretical calculations and formulations of the transmission capacity, there is also an effect on the system of the gutter gap (radial gap) as well as the angle of screw system. In this study, the effect of this radial gap and the angle of the system were evaluated by using two different type of materials which were at experimental method and also computerized. The articles published in this area have been reviewed and the results of the analysis have been interpreted by using the discrete Element Method (DEM). The DEM Modelling gives predictions of the screw conveyor performance in terms of mass flow rate at the different radial gaps and angle of systems.