Auger Screw Conveyors
Auger screw conveyors are used to move things around in industrial settings. Often, shuffling items around manually is inconvenient, if not impossible. Conveyors are a great solution for this problem.
The auger screw conveyor was invented circa 250 BC by none other than Archimedes. Amazing right? Many industrial sectors and household appliances use auger screw conveyors to make work more efficient (sometimes without even knowing it!).
So, what exactly are the uses of auger screw conveyors? Here's everything you need to know.
Moving Semi-Solid Materials
Auger screw conveyors are used to move and pour semi-solid materials, including:
- Food waste
- Wood chips
- Aggregates (wet concrete, sand, or gravel, for example)
- Cereal grains (wheat, corn, barley)
- Animal feed
- Boiler ash
- Butchery Waste (unwanted meat, bone)
- Municipal solid waste
Agriculture
In the agricultural industry, auger screw conveyors are the central mechanisms used in combine harvesters to take grain from the ground and prepare it for storage. Specifically, augers move the unthreshed crop into the threshing mechanism, where the edible part of the grain is shaken loose from its inedible parts.
After that, more augers move the grain in and out of the combine’s hopper, a funnel-like bin used to store harvested, threshed grain. This process uses both open and enclosed augers.
Moving Snow
Snowblowers use auger screw conveyors to move snow particulates off the ground towards an impeller, which throws the snow into a chute. This mechanism clears snow quite effortlessly and—compared to a pair of arms and a shovel—in considerably less time.
Even ice resurfacers, more affectionately known as Zambonis, use auger screws to remove slush from the surface of ice rinks.
Food Processing
Auger screw conveyors have a wide range of uses in the food processing industry.
For example, augers are the tool of choice for processing powders, like spices or flour. They mix raw materials and produce fine granules of material.
Conventional meat grinders also use augers to funnel large pieces of meat into a set of sharp blades. The ground meat produced is the first step toward making well-loved foods like sausages and hamburger patties.
Oil Drilling
In oil fields, auger screw conveyors transport rock cuttings away from the shakers, machines that separate extra shale from the drilling fluid, to offshore mud skips or waste skips, big containers used to hold waste during movement to a permanent refuse location.
Construction
Construction tools like fence post augers (or post hole augers) contain auger screws that drill holes in the ground for fence posts or streetlights and remove excess dirt from the bore.
Charcoal Grills and Stoves
Pellet stoves and charcoal grills also use auger screw conveyors to move fuel from the storage hopper to the firebox safely, keeping the embers away from hands and legs.
Mechanical Production
Sometimes, auger screw conveyors are used in machinery to direct scrap materials like plastic, known to professionals as swarf, away from the workpiece so it can work without getting swamped in byproducts.
For example, metal drills spin into softer material like wood, which curls into small pieces and clutters the area around the newly drilled hole without intervention. Auger screw conveyors turn under the drilling station and carry the scraps away.
Wastewater Treatment Plants
At water treatment plants, auger screw conveyors are used to remove the solid waste from incoming water before it receives filtration for smaller particles and chemical treatment.