When screw conveyors are fabricated, they will typically include stainless steel augers when being used in the food industry. However, there are a number of other material possibilities, including carbon steel, as well as a number of other types of exotic metals, depending on your particular needs. More information about the chilled screw conveyor can be found here.
General Information about the Screw Conveyor
Screw conveyors, which are commonly referred to as augers, are an efficient way for moving a large number of different materials. One of six machines, the screw conveyor has been around for thousands of years and used to provide a mechanical advantage for getting work completed. A screw conveyor can be extremely complex, or extremely simple (a motorized screw that is in a trough).
Considerations for Design
When a screw conveyor is designed for a particular purpose, there are a number of questions that have to be answered to achieve superior performance. Information that is needed will include:
- The type of material that is going to be conveyed.
- The density reported in pounds per square inch.
- The total volume.
- The distance and the speed that the material has to be conveyed.
Some other factors that will be useful include the viscosity, corrosiveness and abrasiveness of the material that is going to be conveyed. When these questions are answered, then the designer of the screw conveyor will know the appropriate motor, trough, length, pitch, diameter and metal requirements.
Reduce Costs with Specialty Screw Conveyors
While there are a number of off the shelf solutions for a number of applications, when you want to maximize the efficiency and the overall performance, there are a number of additional features that are able to be built and designed in the conveyor system, which a number of people never even consider. One example of this would be the benefit that is achieved when the temperature of the screw conveyor is regulated. A chilled features can help to keep the food that is being moved in a semi-frozen state during the process. This ensures that a safe food is produced and provides energy savings, since the product will not have to be completely refrozen.
There is no question that having to purchase new equipment for your plant is expensive. And while an off-the-shelf conveyor may work, in many applications, a custom design will be required for optimal performance.
