Wear resistance of blades in planetary concrete mixers. Design of a new improved blade shape and 2D validation

Wear of machine components is one of the main phenomena to control and limit in order to improve the performance and reduce the production costs. In this paper, the optimization of a planetary concrete mixer in terms of wear resistance of blades is proposed and a new design of the mixing blades' shape is shown and discussed. Experimental tests performed with two stars planetary concrete mixers are described and achieved experimental results are shown. Those results display the progress of blades' wear over time and prove that the proposed modified blade's geometry improves the wear resistance and extends the useful-life.