Design of a Variable-Pitch Screw Feeder for Ultrafine Calcium Carbonate Powder based on EDEM Simulation

Saiyu Tang; Liang Guo

doi:10.54691/s6h1jm78

Authors

Saiyu Tang
Liang Guo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/s6h1jm78

Keywords:

Spiral Parameters; Transport Performance; Screw Conveyance; EDEM.

Abstract

Addressing the problems of insufficient powder feeding accuracy and significant flow fluctuations during the automated preparation of drilling fluids in laboratory environments, a screw feeding mechanism based on a variable-pitch screw was designed. Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations were performed using EDEM to investigate the powder conveying characteristics under different structural parameters. A comparative analysis of the mass flow rate and flow fluctuation was conducted. Under the same operating conditions, the mass flow rate of the variable-pitch screw was 0.373 g/s with a fluctuation rate of 13.3%. In comparison, the constant-pitch screw with an outlet pitch of 9.6 mm achieved a mass flow rate of 0.357 g/s with a fluctuation rate of 18.1%. The conveying capacities of the two structures were comparable, while the variable-pitch screw significantly reduced the flow fluctuations. The results demonstrate the structural advantages of the variable-pitch screw in high-precision continuous powder feeding, providing a reference for the structural design of precision feeding devices.

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