Residence time distribution in a real single screw extruder

Abstract The residence time distribution in an industrial single screw extruder was investigated experimentally in the case of melt and plasticating extrusion. The investigations performed proved that the extrusion parameters influence strongly the residence time distribution in the extruder. It was found that the resistance to flow through the die‐head of the extruder is very important from this point of view, as well as other parameters like rotational speed of the screw and the screw channel depth. Variation of these parameters can change the residence time distribution over a broad range between the extreme idealized cases of plug flow and flow with perfect mixing. In order to obtain quantitative dependences three moduli were used and a correlation equation was obtained. This equation enables an estimation of residence time distribution on the basis of experimental characteristics of the extruder and the actual extrusion parameters.