FEA Simulation of Extruding Feed through Die Hole in Pelleting Process

Abstract

Pellet mill has been widely used in feed industry and biomass energy industry and ring die is its critical component. The structure of the ring die hole not only determines whether the feed can go through the hole smoothly, but also has a great effect on the abrasion of die hole. The finite element simulations that describe the feed extruding in different die-hole have been done and the axial nodal displacements as well as equivalent force along the die-hole internal surface are extracted. Then the feed extruding in different conicities of inlets are also analyzed. It is shown that the camber inlet is better than the conical inlet when taking the abrasion of die-hole into account. Furthermore, the smaller entrance angle of conical inlet is better.