Co-Rotating Twin-Screw Extruders : Fundamentals, Technology, and Applications

Co-rotating screws are used in many branches of industry for producing, preparing and/or processing highly viscous materials. They find a wide variety of applications especially in the plastics, rubber and food industries. Co-rotating twin-screw machines usually have modular configurations and are thus quite flexible for adapting to changing tasks and material properties. Well-founded knowledge of machines, processes and material behavior are required in order to design twin-screw extruder for economically successful operations. This book provides basic engineering knowledge regarding twin-screw machines; it lists the most important machine-technical requirements and provides examples based on actual practice. Better understanding of the processes is emphasized as this is a prerequisite for optimizing twin-screw designs and operating them efficiently. Besides basic functions, such as compounding, the book focuses on the historical development of twin-screws, the geometry of the screw elements (fundamentals, basic patents, patents overview), material properties and material behavior in the machine, fundamentals of feed behavior, pressure build-up and power input, examples of applications for various processing tasks, compounding: tasks, applications, processing zones, potential and limits of modeling, scaling-up various processes, and machine design including drives and materials.

Chapter 1 : Introduction
Chapter 2 : Historical Development of the Co-Rotating Twin Screw
Chapter 3 : Rheological Properties of Polymer Melts
Chapter 4 : General Overview of the Compounding Process : Tasks, Selected Applications, and Process Zones
Chapter 5 : Geometry of the Co-Rotating Extruders : Conveying and Kneading Elements Modeling : Possibilities and Limitations
Chapter 6 : Pressure Generations and Energy Input in the Melt
Chapter 7 : Computational Fluid Dynamics
Chapter 8 : Mixing and Dispersing: Principles
Chapter 9 : Degassing Polymer Melts with Co-Rotating Twin Screw Extruders
Chapter 10 : Simulation or Scale-Up : Alternatives for Extruder Layout? Screw Elements for Co-Rotating, Closely Intermeshing Twin-Screw Extruders
Chapter 11 : Overview of Patented Screw Elements
Chapter 12 : The ZSK Series and Applications in the Chemical Industry and for Renewable Raw Materials
Chapter 13 : ZSK-NT the New Two-Stage Processing System for High Throughputs
Chapter 14 : Material Selection for Twin-Screw Extruders Components in Contact with Resin
Chapter 15 : Drive Units for Co-Rotating Twin-Screw Extruders