Design and Fabrication of a Plastic Film Granulating Machine

Abstract

Plastic film granulating machine is an industrial machine used for reducing plastic materials, mostly for grinding plastic into granules of uniform sizes for further processing either into new plastic shapes or recycled back to its parental source. This paper presents the use of locally sourced materials for realising the same machine; reducing its size and cost, while maintaining high efficiency, as well as decrease in vibration and increased shear efficiency with uniform size of granules. The machine consists of the hopper, the grinding chamber in which contains the shaft and cutting blades with a discharge unit. The plastic film granulator has a capacity of granulating 1kg of recycled plastic in 1h at 75% efficiency, a working revolution of 3000rpm, and power rating of 5.5hp engine.  The machine works by principle of shearing, power is transferred from the motor to the granulating shaft with the aid of a transmission coupler that connects them. The inlet plastics are granulated until the desired size is achieved, small enough to pass through the discharge screen.