Vibrations in engineering and technology

Volodymyr Dudin – Ph.D., Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Technical Systems Engineering of Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University (St. S. Efremova, 25, Dnipro, Ukraine, 49000, e-mail: dudin.v.yu@dsau.dp.ua, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1414-7690)

Illia Bilous, recipient of the PhD degree of the Departments of Technical Systems Engineering of Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University (St. S. Efremova, 25, Dnipro, Ukraine, 49000, e-mail: bilous.i.m@dsau.dp.ua, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9635-6631).

The article studies the efficiency of a disc grain mill for concentrated feed, considering its structural and technological parameters and the influence of operating factors on grinding quality. The analysis of existing grinding methods has shown that traditional hammer and roller mills have significant drawbacks, such as high energy consumption (8–15 kWh/t for hammer mills) and an uneven particle size distribution of the product. In this regard, experimental studies were conducted on the operation of a disc mill, which potentially offers higher energy efficiency and a more uniform particle distribution.

The aim of the study is to determine the influence of the structural and technological parameters of a disc mill for concentrated feed on grinding quality and energy consumption.

The study examined the impact of key factors, including the modular gap between the discs (0.6–1.6 mm), disc rotation speed (1500–3000 rpm), and grain feed rate into the grinding chamber (450–1350 kg/h) on productivity and grinding quality. It was found that increasing the modular gap leads to an increase in the proportion of large fractions (for example, for wheat, the mass fraction of particles retained on a 2 mm sieve increased from 13.1% to 79.4%). At the same time, mill productivity depended on the type of grain: for wheat, it ranged from 0.1–0.25 t/h with a specific energy consumption of 1.7–8.2 kWh/t; for barley, 0.075–0.18 t/h and 3.8–9.4 kWh/t; and for corn, 0.07–0.18 t/h and 2.9–7.2 kWh/t.

The results obtained suggest that the disc mill can be recommended as an energy-efficient alternative to traditional grinders in compound feed production. Optimizing the structural and technological parameters allows for reduced energy consumption and improved uniformity of the particle size distribution of the final product, contributing to increased productivity in livestock farms.

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