Flow modelling of particle in screw conveyors

Screw conveyors have a wide range of usage area conveying or elevating of bulk materials in agricultural and other industrial processes along short and medium distances. Despite their simplicity of usage, modelling of the dynamics of granular materials is required to make complicated math calculations and complex screw designs. Beside having knowledge of standart equations, each manufacturer has their individual design criteria referring to past experiences. However, it is necessery to design a specific conveyor for each application because of the variety of materials and the design difficulty of complex material motion. Because the designing rules obtained from trial and error method don't offer a reasonable economical result, modelling of the whole system with a computer software is the most efficient way for companies before manufacturing process. In this study, polypropylene material flow has been simulated with using a computer software for different screw conveyor angles. Mass flow rate results obtained from simulations have compared with experiments and theorical calculations. Then differences between software and experimental outputs for different conveyor angles have been investigated. At the end of the study, the effects of changing some specific conveyor and material parameters on mass flow rate outputs have been determined. "SolidWorks®" CAD software has been used for designing of screw conveyors and a Discrete Element Method software has been drived for modelling and simulating of polypropylene material.