Enhanced sieving mechanism of novel cleaning screen and investigation of particle movement characteristics on the screen

A variable slope screen with a hole structure was designed to improve the cleaning performance of maize cleaning devices. The movement behaviour and sieving performance of maize mixture particles on the new and traditional screens were quantified using relative migration and through-screen mass ratio coefficients. Computational Fluid Dynamics and Discrete Element Method were applied to analyze these coefficients in this study. Results revealed that the new screen had a 37.96% higher relative migration coefficient than the traditional screen. The average through-screen mass ratio coefficient on the new screen was 24.61% of that on the traditional screen. These indicated that the new screen was better than the traditional screen for cleaning maize mixtures, and the simulation tests were validated through bench tests. This study provided a valuable reference for the high cleaning rate sieving of maize cleaning devices.