Modelling the effects of operating conditions on motor power consumption in single screw extrusion

Extrusion is one of the most important production methods in the plastics industry and is involved in the production of a large number of plastics commodities. Being an energy intensive production method, process energy efficiency is of major concern and selection of the most energy efficient processing conditions is a key aim to reduce operating costs. Extruders consume energy through motor operation (i.e. drive to screw), the barrel heaters and also for cooling fans, cooling water pumps, gear pumps, screen pack changing devices etc. Typically the drive motor consumes more than one third of the total machine energy consumption. This study investigates the motor power consumption based on motor electrical variables (only for direct current (DC) motors) and new models are developed to predict the motor power consumption from easily measurable process settings for a particular machine geometry. Developed models are in good agreement with training and unseen data by representing the actual conditions with more than 95% accuracy. These models will help to determine the effects of individual process settings on the drive motor energy consumption and optimal motor energy efficient settings for single screw extruders.