Modeling and simulation of transportation system of screw conveyors by the Discrete Element Method

The transportation of bulk materials is of importance in many industrial applications, ranging from minerals, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pigments, plastics, cement, sand, salt and food processing. Screw conveyors are widely used for transportation of particulates at controlled and steady rates. In this paper, we use the Discrete Element Method (DEM) to analyze the performance of a screw conveyor including visualization of the motion of particles, angular and axial velocity of particles, overall torque and total force, kinetic energy and total energy dissipation. The DEM model was established by applying periodic boundary conditions to a single pitch of the screw and the particles are modeled as spheres. DEM simulation shows that the nature of the particle flow in a horizontal screw conveyor is surprisingly complex and is reasonably sensitive to the operating conditions. The dependence of the performance of a screw conveyor on the operating conditions is analyzed.