They also permit adequate constancy of the dwell time and produce due to the manner in which they are constructed positive and substantially uniform flow of the material and substantially uniform and predictable processing of the material fed into the extruders in the zones thereof to which are assigned the respective stages of the processing. However,
twin screw extruder are extremely expensive due to the complexity of the structure thereof and as a result use of twin- screw extruders is often not economically acceptable as it is well known to experts in the art.
Various other means such as feed-in rollers and conical feed-in screws have been proposed for
single screw extruder so as to improve the feed-in and the flow of the material, and also to increase the quantity of the material that can be processed. As it is well known in the art, overfeeding and underfeeding, especially in the first few turns of the conveyor screw, that is, in the turns adjacent to the feed port of the extruder, have a particularly strong effect on the over-all performance of the extruders.
It has been proposed to provide in the feed zone of a
single- screw extruder an auxiliary screw which is parallel and rotated in opposition to the main conveyor screw of the extruder and which is in mesh with the turns of the main screw though not in tight engagement therewith. Such an arrangement serves primarily to improve the kneading action in the extruder, for which purpose the main screw and the auxiliary screw usually have different diameters.