In a smooth barrel extruder, the throughput is generally dominated by the metering sections pumping ability. Within the feed zone, more granules can always be conveyed than can melt in the compression zone and be discharged in the metering zone. At high screw speeds, this effect will only occur if the granules flow quickly enough out of the hopper into the screw channel and this is fully filled. In this case, the solids throughput up to maximum screw speed shows an approximately linear relationship to the speed. These linear solids conveying characteristics necessitate constructional changes to the hopper opening. In this article, solids conveying processes with approximately linear conveying characteristics up to speeds of 2,000 min−1 (peripheral velocities up to 3 m/s) are simulated with various feed hopper geometries. The simulations are carried out by means of DEM (Discrete Element Method) in which the granules are approximated by single spherical particles. From the simulation results, via dimensional analysis a model is derived for describing the throughput as a function of the geometry and process parameters of the solids feed zone.

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