Spiral Washers VS Spiral Classifiers

Spiral washer is a type of sand washing machine, while spiral classifier is a mineral processing equipment. There are many similarities between spiral washers and spiral classifiers in appearance, many users can not distinguish them. In this article, will introduce 6 differences between spiral washers and spiral classifiers.

1. Different Appearances

There are obvious differences between the blades. The blades of the spiral washer are solid blades, while the blades of the spiral classifier are suspended hollow blades, as shown in the following image:

2. Different Working Principles

Spiral washers need to be arranged obliquely, the lower part of the water tank is surrounded by three side weir plates to form a sedimentation tank, the spiral head is submerged in the sedimentation tank, the spiral washer is driven by the motor through the reducer to rotate continuously, and the cleaning water is supplied from the porous plate at the bottom of the sedimentation tank. Spiral washer has the ability of cleaning, dewatering and grading in one unit.

Spiral classifier is based on the principle of different solid particle size and specific gravity has different settling speed in liquid. Fines float in the water and overflow, while coarses sink at the bottom of the tank and are pushed upward by the screw shaft and discharged from the outlet.

3. Different Applications

Spiral washer is mainly used for the cleaning of sand, (the wheel sand washer is also commonly used). The output of spiral washer is related to its length and width.

Spiral classifier is widely used in ore benefication plant combination with ball mill to form closed-circuit circulation for separating ore sand, classifying sand and fine mud in gravity concentrator , grading pulp in metal benefinication process, desliming and dewatering in ore washing perations.

4. Different Capacity

The blade area of spiral washer is larger, so the aggregate transported in a same period will be more, and the handling capacity is about 2-3 times of that of the spiral classifier.

5. Different Washing Effects

For equipment of the same size, the bin of the spiral washer will be larger than that of spiral classifier, and the settle time of sand will be longer, so the washed sand will be much cleaner.

6. Different Types

spiral washers can be divided into single spiral washer and double spiral washer, and the processing capacity can be increased by increasing the length of the washer machine or double spiral side by side.

Spiral classifier mainly includes high weir single screw and double screw, low weir single screw and double screw, submerged single screw and double screw. Now, the high weir and submerged types are the mainstream.