International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)

Design and Analysis of Screw Conveyor at Inlet of Ash/Dust

Conditioner
Mayur M. Wable1, Vijay K. Kurkute2
1

M.Tech Scholar, 2Assistant Professor, BVUCOE, Pune, India

Then this form of ash is loaded into the trucks, here both
fly ash and bed ash collected in silo and specified quantity
of ash is transferred to ash/dust conditioner through rotary
valve but problem with this rotary valve is that due to any
random size of bed ash clinkers many times it happens that
small size clinkers gets stuck between stator and rotor gap,
also sometimes large size clinker gets stuck between outlet
of silo and inlet of rotary valve and frequent maintenance
of rotary valve is required.
So instead of using rotary valve we can use screw
conveyor in the same constrained space so we dont need
this frequent maintenance.

Abstract The Screw conveyors are very widely used for

transporting bulk material than other conveyors. They can be
used for metering (measuring the flow rate) application in
coal industries from storage silo to dust conditioner instead of
using traditional rotary valve.
Most of these studies were experimental in nature. Here in
this paper we represent the modification of dust conditioner
by replacing its metering equipment at inlet that is rotary
valve by screw conveyor in the same constrained space to get
same output of 15 tons from modified design with reduced
maintenance and less power consumption, by fabricating and
field trial we have found that the design is safe. This
discussion will be helpful for future research and industrial
use.

II. DUST CONDITIONER WITH ROTARY VALVE

Keywords Screw conveyor, Ash/Dust conditioner, Rotary

airlock valve, Bulk material, Capacity, Horsepower.

I. INTRODUCTION
In boiler when coal is feeded it is burned with fuel and
converted into two forms fly ash particles and bed ash. Bed
ash is generally at very high temperature, this bed ash is
dipped into cold water so that its temperature is reduced
and then it is conveyed by submerged belt conveyor to silo.
The fly ash is mixed with steam and it is suck by forced
draft fan to chimney, so before fly ash is passed through
turbine generating electricity it is collected by electrostatic
smoke precipitator, thus most of fly ash is collected by
electrostatic smoke precipitator and conveyed by belt
conveyor to silo. Then both of these fly ash particles and
bed ash are collected together in silo.
When silo is filled its valve is opened and both fly ash
and bed ash loaded to trucks. Before this ash is loaded in
truck, to avoid scattering of fly ash into atmosphere which
lead to environmental pollution it is mixed with water so
that it is converted to granular form and fly ash is not able
to scatter in atmosphere. This process is called dust
conditioning.

Figure 1 Dust conditioner with rotary valve

This ash/dust conditioner is traditionally used with

rotary airlock valve shown in figure.
Capacity 15 tph
Water addition 10 to 15% typically.
The flow of material into bucket of rotary valve is due to
gravity and transfer of material from inlet to outlet of valve
is by rotary motion of valve. [1]

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)
III. DUST CONDITIONER WITH SCREW CONVEYOR

Figure 2 Dust conditioner with screw conveyor

IV. SCREW CONVEYOR

Archimedes designed the first screw conveyor in the
third century B.C. It was used for removing water from
ships and for irrigating farmland. The device consisted of a
hollow cylinder with a center shaft and a spiral fixed to the
inner Wall of the cylinder and center shaft. As the assembly
rotated, water was conveyed and lifted from one location to
another. [2]-[5]
The rotating part of the conveyor is simply called as
auger. [6]
When a horizontal screw conveyor is used at the inlet of
dust conditioner in place of rotary valve, the flow of
material by screw conveyor is horizontal and the motion of
pocket is helical so the effect due to gravity is negligible
and clinker gets adjusted effectively.

A.

Conveyor Screw

B.

Job-Rated Components Jig-Drilled Couplings, Tem-ULac Self-Locking Coupling Bolts

C.

Hangers and Bearings

D.

Trough Ends

E.

Troughs, Covers, Clamps and Shrouds

F.

Nu-Weld Flange

G.

Feed and Discharge Spouts

H.

Supporting Feet and Saddle

In general, the radial clearance is important parameter in

screw conveyor. The radial clearance needs to be at least
1.5 times larger than the maximum particle size to prevent
jamming of particles in the clearance space leading to
particle attrition and increased energy loss. The clearance
needs to be limited a maximum value of about 3 times of
the maximum particle size to prevent excessive slip back
and loss of efficiency at higher angles of elevation. [7]
Value of screw pitch generally varies from 0.8 to 1.0
times diameter D of the screw. The lump size of materials
determines the minimum size of the screw diameter 'D' to
be chosen. D is recommended to be at least 12 times the
lump size of a sized material or at least 4 times the largest
lumps of an un-sized material. [8]
Advantages of the horizontal screw Conveyors are:
reduced risk of environmental pollution, the transported
material is protected from exterior contamination,
flexibility of use, functional reliability, easy to install, easy
to clean, can control very well the flow of free flowing
materials. [9]
V. MATERIAL AND METHOD
The material used for loading screw conveyor is fly
ash fluidized bed whose density is 300 kg/m3.

Figure 3 Exploded view of screw conveyor

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Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)
Here we take the required capacity as 1765 cubic foot
per hour for the conveying length of 6.56 foot. Here the
flight of screw is made of carbon steel. Material used for
hanger bearing is graphite bronze. With this setup
following procedure is followed.
The material is loaded from the hopper to inlet of the
screw conveyor as per requirement. Here we considered,
percentage loadings of trough 100%. With respect to trough
loading corresponding required speed, diameter and total
horsepower required are calculated based on below
formula. [10]

The total horsepower requirement is the sum of the

horsepower required to overcome the friction (HP f) of the
screw conveyor components and horsepower required to
transport the material (HP m) multiplied by the overload
factor (Fo) and divided by the total drive efficiency (e).
=

Where, L is total length of conveyor in feet, N is

operating speed in rpm, C is capacity in cubic feet per hour,
D is density of material as conveyed in (lb/cf), Fd is screw
diameter factor. Fb is hanger bearing factor. Fm is Material
factor for fly ash fluidized bed having value 3, F f is Flight
factor, Fp is Paddle factor. Fo is Overload factor.
VII. DESIGN AND CALCULATION
A. Design of Screw:
Data for calculation

Figure 4 Screw conveyor dimensions

The capacity in cubic feet per hour per revolution per

minute is:
=

Required Capacity-15Tph
Bulk Density of material -300 Kg/m3

Capacity in Cubic feet per Hour-1765.735

Diameter of Screw in Inches-16

Here, C is capacity in cubic feet per hour, rpm is

revolutions of screw per minute, Ds is diameter of screw in
inches, Dp is diameter of pipe in inches, P is pitch of screw
in inches, K is percent trough loading.
Required capacity is also affected by various factors of
screw which are special screw pitch capacity factor (CF1),
flight modification factor (CF2) and mixing paddle capacity
factor (CF3). Therefore equivalent capacity required is [11]
Equivalent capacity= Required capacity CF1 CF2
CF3
The diameter of conveyor would be selected from
corresponding percentage loading to achieve the equivalent
capacity within the recommended rpm range.

Diameter of Pipe in Inches-8

Pitch of screw In Inches-12
Percentages of Trough Loading at Cross Section100% filling
Revolutions of Screw per Minute-35
Overload factor for motor, Fo 1.8
B. Selection Tables:
Table 1.
Screw Diameter Factor, Fd

Screw
Diameter
inches
4
6
9
10
12

VI. HORSEPOWER REQUIREMENT

The horsepower required to operate a horizontal screw
conveyor is based on proper installation, uniform and
regular feed rate of the screw conveyor and other design
criteria.

Fd
12.0
18.0
31.0
37.0
55.0

Screw
Diameter
inches
14
16
18
20
24

Fd
78.0
106.0
135.0
165.0
235.0

Fd is screw diameter factor which is for diameter of 16 inch is

106

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Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)
Table 2.
Flight Factor, Ff

Table 4
Paddle Factor, Fp

Standard paddles per pitch set at 450

Conveyor Loading
Type of Flight

reverse pitch.

Standard
Cut Flight
Cut & folded Flight
Ribbon Flight

15%

30%

45%

95%

1.0
1.10
N.R.*
1.05

1.0
1.15
1.50
1.14

1.0
1.20
1.70
1.20

1.0
1.3
2.20
-

None

Factor Fp

*Not Recommended

1.00

1.29

1.58

1.87

2.16

Paddle factor Fp is selected 1.

Flight factor Ff is 1 for standard flight of any loading.

Table 3.
Hanger Bearing Factor, Fb

VIII. RESULT AND CALCULATION

Component
Group

Bearing Type

Fb

Group A

Ball

1.0

Calculated Capacity - 2199.12 Cu Ft per hour

Required Capacity -1765.735 Cu Ft per hour
Horse power requirement in HP- 2.5254
Transfer in KW-3.3672
Nearest standard rating available in KW -5
IX. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

For any analysis there are some theoretical calculations

behind it.The deflection of screw as per cema standard is
given by

Babbitt
Bronze
Group B

Graphite Bronze
Canvas base phenolic

Conveyor Screw deflection =

1.7

Oil impregnated bronze

Where,

Oil impregnated Wood

W=Total weight of Screw = 85 kg

=Deflection at Mid Span In mm

Plastic
Group C

Nylon

2.0

L=Length of Screw in between Bearings = 1960 mm

Teflon
Group D

Chilled hard iron

E =Modulas of Elasticty for low carbon Steel = 200000

N/mm2
4.4

I =Movement of Inertia of shaft = 30172616.04 kg-mm2

Hardened alloy sleeve

Fb is hanger bearing factor with value 1.7

= 0.0013809 mm

294

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)
The theoretical value coinciding with the analysis value
shown below thereby validating the result.

XI. GRAPHS
As we discussed that the horsepower depends upon
density, capacity and other factors. The power consumption
of Rotary airlock valve (RAV) is observed to be 4.2 KW
with dust conditioner and the power consumption with
screw conveyor of same capacity is observed 3.5 KW as
explained graphically below.

X. ANALYSIS RESULT

4.5

4.2

4
3.5
3.5
3
2.5
2
Figure 5 Total deformation

1.5
1
0.5
0
POWER(KW)
RAV

SCREW

Figure 7 Power consumption of RAV vs screw.

XII. CONCLUSION
From above experimentation, the main issue concerned
in all explanation was use of screw conveyor in place of
rotary airlock valve is safe and beneficial or not. So from
analysis result we found that screw conveyor is safe to use
as maximum total deflection is less than 0.25 inch and
maximum von mises stress is less than 370 MPa which is
yield strength of material. The power consumption in dust
conditioner with rotary valve is observed as 4.2 KW for 15
tons material transfer whereas after using screw conveyor
in place of rotary airlock valve the power consumption is
observed to be 3.5 KW so screw conveyor is beneficial
than rotary valve.

Figure 6 Von mises stresses

Table 6.
Comparison Of Computational And Theoretical Result

Parameter

Analysis

Deflection

0.001386 mm

Theoretical
0.1381

295

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2015)
[6]

Patel J.N., Patel S.P. and Patel S.S., 2013, Productivity

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[11] Dixit K.D., Rao A. S. and Vasudevan P., 2014, Effect of Percent
Trough Load on Horizontal Screw Conveyor, international journal
of engineering development and research, Vol.2, Issue 1, pp. 508511.

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