Portable Inclined Tubular Screw Feeder for Carbon and Iron Oxide Powder

General Description

Britton Industries is a leader in providing landscaping products to the north east region of the United States. Premium color enhanced mulch is produced from grinding and blending select hardwoods with long-lasting and environmentally friendly colorants. Mulch provides good moisture retention and weed suppression. Britton Industries needed a solution for transporting carbon and iron oxide powder from super sacks up to a mix tank. Carbon and iron oxide are used to coat the different mulch products to form a barrier of long lasting protection from the damaging effects of sunlight and shield against damage from rain and snow. KWS designed and manufactured a very unique inclined screw feeder for the application. Britton Industries also needed the system to be portable in order to move to different locations on site. KWS worked with Britton Industries to develop an excellent solution to meter both materials to the mix tank.

Design Parameters

KWS Advantages

Britton Industries contacted KWS to discuss a possible solution. They were looking for an inclined screw feeder to meter bulk materials at a specific feed rate to the correct discharge height into a mix tank. The carbon and iron oxide powders were mixed in a batch mixer with other ingredients and liquids to produce a coating for mulch. The screw feeder was designed by the KWS engineering team to make sure that all Britton’s requirements were met. The inlet of the screw feeder was designed to match the existing super sack discharge. KWS utilized a tubular housing to contain the products and prevent leakage and designed a special discharge transition to fit the inlet of the mix tank.

Special Features

Designing inclined screw feeders requires knowledge and experience of the bulk materials to be metered. KWS created a design with a non-split tubular housing and a screw that fit closely inside the housing to improve metering accuracy and capacity. KWS also designed for worst-case conditions of maximum feed rate and material bulk density. Extra horsepower was needed to overcome any upset conditions. The tail end of screw feeder was fitted with a split gland seal eliminate material leakage at the tail shaft. A variable frequency drive (VFD) was added to control the feed rate of both densities of powder. KWS also designed a heavy-duty movable stand so the system could be portable.