Analysis of the Screw Flight Wear Model and Wear Regularity of the Bulk Transport in Screw Ship Unloader

The screw flight, spiral blade welded on the axial cylinder, is the core component of the screw ship unloader and can be seriously worn by the materials during long-term conveying. The damaged screw flight will make the screw ship unloader unable to unload materials or even lead to an accident. However, the existing wear model cannot be directly applied to predict the wear of the screw flight under different working conditions. Hence, we established a new screw flight wear model based on the Archard wear model and Continuous Medium Hypothesis to predict the service life of the screw flight. Three influencing factors, including speed, filling rate, and pitch, were selected to study the wear law of the screw flight, and the wear law was verified by EDEM simulation. Results indicate that the simulation results affected by the changes in various factors were consistent with the calculation model. With the increase of rotation speed and filling rate, the screw flight wear rate increased. Nevertheless, with the increase of pitch, the screw flight wear rate first increased and then decreased. The screw flight wear model can be used to calculate the wear rate under different working conditions for the screw flight life prediction.