Single screw extruder for synthetic tackifier

[Sanchit1331]

Dear all,

I am currently facing a serious problem in my extruder system. It's a make shift single screw with a GP screw powered by a 12 HP motor using a belt transmission. It is used to extrude strands of our in-house made glycol modified PET resins.

Due to the feedstock material being tacky, the machine gets repeatedly jammed for which we have to run the heater for several hours to melt the polymer or worse, disassemble the whole unit and clean the screw. Even during operation, only one hole out of 8 holes in the die is able to produce strand; rest of the holes gets clogged by the resin, severely limiting output.

Since it a make shift model, unfortunately there are no sensors or variable monitoring. I am also not an expert in extrusion but I know the basic terminology.

I will introduce sensors but my first priority is to troubleshoot a way to make sure that polymer extrudes through all the holes in the die. Can any of you kindly give me some practical advice as I am on verge of losing my clients because of this.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Based on a few months working as a drafter for W&P, I think the traditional preventive is a 'choke ring' immediately upstream of the nozzle array.

But it occurs that with so few nozzles, you could fit individual heaters to each nozzle and tweak the temperatures a bit as the nozzles start to clog.

Mike Halloran
Corinth, NY, USA