Screw Conveyor

A screw conveyor is a mechanism that uses a rotating helical screw blade usually within a tube, to move liquid or granular materials. They are used in many bulk handling industries. Screw conveyors in modern industry are often used horizontally or at a slight incline as an efficient way to move semi-solid materials, including food waste, cereal grains, animal feed, meat and bone meal, municipal solid waste, and many others. They usually consist of a trough or tube containing either a spiral blade coiled around a shaft, driven at one end and held at the other, or a “shaftless spiral”, driven at one end and free at the other.

Screw conveyors can be operated with the flow of material inclined upward. When space allows, this is a very economical method of elevating and conveying. The rotating part of the conveyor is sometimes called simply an auger.