The Impact of Screw Pitch Types on Screw Feeder Performance on Floating Fish Feed Machine

Abstract

One of the important parts of the floating pellet machine, a tool often used in Indonesia to produce fish feed, is the screw press. The largest contributor to the overall production cost in fish farming is fish feed. Floating pellet machines usually require two motors and have large machine dimensions due to the use of two constant-pitch screw feeders. The purpose of this study was to optimize the performance of the floating fish feed machine with one screw press and one drive motor, with the screw feeder selected as the variable-pitch type. The simulation method was used to compare the mass flow rate produced by each screw pitch and the pressure value parameters on the screw. Based on the results of the study, by using the same fish feed machine base, changing the screw pitch type from the constant type to the variable type, provides an increase in the quality of the fish feed produced to be denser and not easily destroyed, and its buoyancy increases.