Determination of optimal technological parameters of a horizontal mixer of loose compound feeds

Abstract

The quality of the compound feeds for animals and poultry directly depends not only on the components included in it but also on the type of mixer used. Horizontal mixers as compared to the vertical ones allow for a shorter period of time to obtain high-quality mixtures due to the intensification of the process of material movement by belt working bodies. The aim of the research is to determine optimal technological parameters of a horizontal mixer with a 0.3 m3 mixing chamber with a belt working body. The mixer is designed to produce mixed compound feeds of high uniformity in production lines, workshops or can be used as an independent machine for mixing loose components. The research was carried through multifactorial experiment. As the result, mathematical models of the mixer working process were obtained, two-dimensional cross sections of the response surfaces were built. The obtained mathematical models make it possible at the design stage to identify the dependence of qualitative and energy indicators on factors at the considered levels of variation. According to the results of the multifactorial experiment, it has been established that the best mixing quality of 94.8 % is achieved when the mixing chamber is loaded by 58 % at a speed of rotation of the mixer shaft of 30 min-1, mixing time of 6 minutes with simultaneous supply of the control and the main components. At the same time, the throughput is 0.78 t/h, and the specific energy consumption is 2.04 kWh/t.

Keywords

• mixing
• multifactorial experiment
• belt auger
• experiments
• mixer performance
• animal feeding
• feed preparation line
• mixing quality