The company GKN requires a production plant to produce a titanium – iron – manganese (TiFeMn) alloy. This is planned and designed by the company INTECO melting and casting technologies GmbH. This production plant will manufacture the metal flakes after the casting process. Due to the casting process the production starting temperature very high. Therefore, a combined cooling and conveying unit shall cool the TiFeMn – Flakes to the final temperature and transport them to the delivery point for further transportation. A suitable concept for this unit will be developed and selected. In the course of a literature and market research a reflux cooler, a cooling drum and a thermal spiral conveyor are revealed as potential approaches.
To choose the best concept, practical experiments are performed. In these the necessary material properties of the metal flakes are measured and the flow behaviour out of two different funnels are analysed. Simulations of the flow behaviour are conducted with the generated data and the discrete element method.
The evaluation of the flow behaviour analysis of the practical experiments shows the bridging effect by an irregular pyramidal funnel as well as by a round funnel. Additionally, a wedging of the material occurs, so that the flow through the outlet is prevented. The simulations reflect the behaviour of the real experiments.
With the developed material properties and the results of the flow behaviour a combined cooling and conveying unit is selected as basis for the further project process.