Mathematical modeling of the oil extrusion process with pre-grinding of raw materials in a twin-screw extruder

Abstract

The extrusion process of oil-containing raw materials using a twin-screw extruder is becoming increasingly common in food technology. The problem of high energy costs for the implementation of this process is solved by reducing the resistance of the process mass due to the preliminary grinding of raw materials. The classical theory of extrusion is based mainly on the use of theoretical solutions of mathematical models of processes, which are simplified and allow determining integral parameters using coefficients, the preparation of which for the calculation of the corresponding processes and equipment is a rather complicated and approximate procedure. Mathematical modelling of the movement of the technological medium at the individual stages of the processing of raw materials allows us to determine the analytical dependences for the power and energy parameters of the system and to carry out their effective technical and economic evaluation. Using the methods of mathematical analysis and data processing in the MathCAD software environment, graphical dependences of the power and energy parameters of the research technical system were obtained. By increasing the density of the oil-containing raw materials, which is extruded in the research extruder by 40.5% the pressure force increases by 41%, that is, there is an almost proportional relationship between the pressure force and the density of the processed raw material. With an increase in the angular velocity of the drive shaft ω more than 8 rad.s-1, the pressure force in the research process increases sharply. With an increase in the density of raw materials, it is grinded before extrusion by 40%, the power consumption for the grinding process increases by 2.8 times for the recommended operating mode. Energy losses for pressing completely grinded raw materials are reduced by 2.52 times.