Study of Wear of Planetary Concrete Mixer Blades Using a 3D Optical Scanner

Abstract

Performance optimization of a concrete mixer is fundamental in many industrial technologies. Wear is one of the main phenomena to be forecast and tested during the design and service of mechanical components. In all the concrete mixers types, blades suffer the wear more than other components. Two different blade shapes have been tested in order to evaluate the wear rates and which of them has the best performance in terms of wear resistance. One of the two shapes has been designed in order to minimize wear rates and to allow longer durability, on the basis of a theoretical approach. To guarantee the consistence of the comparison, the two different blades have been tested in a dedicated planetary concrete mixer, with the same operating conditions (time-period, same mixture and mixer). The purpose of this paper is to show optical non-contact measurements of worn blades operating in a planetary concrete mixer in order to evaluate wear rates and to validate the efficiency of the new blade design.