Effect of design and kinematic parameters on energy requirement in inclined screw mixer

Abstract

Introduction. Rational parameters and modes of an inclined batch screw mixer are validated to achieve the lowest energyintensive feed mixing under observance of the zootechnical requirements for the feed quality on uneven mixing. The establishment of functional dependences between parameters and modes enables to design power-efficient equipment for the on-farm feed production.Materials and Methods. Experimental studies of the feed mixing were implemented on an inclined screw batch feed mixer. The experimental design included variation of four independent factors: mixer shaft speed, filling ratio of the mixing chamber, mixing time, and mixing chamber angle. Mixing irregularity and energy intensity of the process were taken as optimization criteria characterizing the mixing efficiency.Research Results.The optimization criteria versus the variability level factor, which are two-dimensional sections of the second-order response surfaces, are plotted. The rational values at mixing irregularity of less than 5% were as follows: mixer shaft speed was 27.5-36.5 min-1 , filling ratio of the mixing chamber was 0.43–0.51, mixing time was 3.0–4.2 min, mixing chamber angle was 22°–25°. At such parameter values, the mixing irregularity will be minimal, and it will be 4.10– 4.18%, and the process intensity is from 2.08 to 2.16 kW • h/t.Discussion and Conclusions. The dependences obtained as a result of the experimental studies allowed establishing the domain of rational design parameters and modes of an inclined batch screw mixer. The results obtained can be used in further studies under the development of initial requirements for the creation of new technical means with a gravitation effect of intensive mixing.