Abstract
Mixing is one of the most commonly used processes in food, animal feed, chemical, cosmetic, etc., industries. It is supposed to provide high-quality homogenous, nutritious mixtures. To provide appropriate mixing of materials while maintaining the process high efficiency and low energy consumption it is crucial to explore and describe the material flow caused by the movement of mixing elements and the contact between particles. The process of mixing is also affected by structural features of the machine components and the mixing chamber, speed of mixing, and properties of the mixed materials, such as the size of particles, moisture, friction coefficients. Thus, modeling of the phenomena that accompany the process of mixing using the above-listed parameters is indispensable for appropriate implementation of the process. The paper provides theoretical power calculations that take into account the material speed change, the impact of the material friction coefficient on the screw steel surface and the impact of the friction coefficient on the material, taking into account the loading height of the mixing chamber and the chamber loading value. Dependencies between the mixer power and the product degree of fineness, rotational speed of screw friction coefficients, the number of windings per length unit, and width of the screw tape have been presented on the basis of a developed model. It has been found that power increases along with an increase in the value of these parameters. Verification of the theoretical model indicated consistence of the predicted power demand with the power demand determined in tests performed on a real object for values of the assumed, effective loading, which was 65–75%.
Highlights
Introduction iationsIn order to increase the efficiency of livestock production, it is necessary to use food balanced in nutritional value
The nature of change of the surfaces, their appearance and the direction of the vector of change in the power value are the same for all three mixer screws, the surfaces obtained for the middle screw are given as an example
As a result of studies, it can be concluded that the more the mixture components are ground, the more power is consumed for their mixing
Summary
In order to increase the efficiency of livestock production, it is necessary to use food balanced in nutritional value. The main step in the preparation of balanced feeds is to mix the components [1,2,3,4]. One of the most commonly used in mixing processes are screw mixers (single, double and multi-screw) [5], to which the considerations in this paper will be limited. Due to the variety of materials that are mixed with each other (they can be both bulk materials and liquid additives), it is necessary to carry out detailed theoretical considerations and, to verify developed models by means of experiment, in order to describe the processes of materials mixing to achieve the highest possible process efficiency and product quality [4,6,7,8]. The flow of materials, and the resulting mixing efficiency, depends on the parameters of the Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland
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