DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF A VERSATILE SCREW FEEDER BASED POWDER DISPENSER FOR DISPENSING OF THE HETEROGENOUS ZIRCONIUM MOLYBDATE  POWDER

Chetan Kothalkar; Dr J.P. Modak; Dr V.H.Tatwawadi

Volume : V, Issue : I, January - 2015

DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF A VERSATILE SCREW FEEDER BASED POWDER DISPENSER FOR DISPENSING OF THE HETEROGENOUS ZIRCONIUM MOLYBDATE POWDER

Chetan Kothalkar, Dr J. P. Modak, Dr V. H. Tatwawadi

Abstract :

A screw feeder based powder dispenser for handling heterogeneous zirconium Molybdate (Zr&ndash;Mo) powder was designed with a stirrer as flow promotion device. Since the Zr&ndash;Mo powder is bone dry and free flowing, in the design improvement, stirrer was removed by selecting appropriate hopper angle by studying the properties of the Zr&ndash;Mo powder. Improved prototype was faicated and put to actual use. In order to get exact idea about the behavior of the powder dispenser, mathematical modeling using dimensional analysis and graphical method has been done. Total 11 independent terms first were reduced to eight and further to four. In order to get exact mathematical model, four independent terms further converted to one by forming various combinations and their behaviour was plotted on graph. Mathematical model has been generated by using graphical method in the form of the mathematical equation. Finally predicted mean square error (MSE) and efficiency of the model (MEF) has been calculated. Poor MEF has been observed which may be due to several reasons like error in material properties obtained by using non&ndash;standard instruments, influence of powder dispenser etc.