There are different types of hammer mill depending on their use. There are those which are used for research, industrial, residential and agricultural applications. The hammer mill can also be created small enough in order to sit on a counter top and be able to run a household current. They can also be created large enough in order to shred an entire automobile. Some of the largest hammer mills use huge diesel engines of about 2,000 horsepower or even more. The axis on the rotating shaft of the hammer mill can be constructed in either a vertical or horizontal position though the horizontal configuration is far more common. Farmers at times make use of a hammer mill in pulverizing grains to feed their livestock with. The machineries have the advantage of being able to process different types of materials as well as in producing particles of different sizes by just changing the output of the screen. Hammer mill of this type can be operated at about 1,800 revolutions per minute with the tips of the hammers moving at around 60 mph or even more. The particles produced when the material is subjected this way will be very uniform and will tend to have a spherical shape.
Industrial uses
The industrial uses of hammer mill include different types of recycling operations including producing pulp used in paper production, stone crushing and bio-fuel production. Other uses of hammer mill include grinding grain used in ethanol production or in pulverizing fruit to be used in juice production. A sawmill can also employ a hammer mill for the purpose of grinding the scrap into mulch or a material used in manufacturing wood pellet fuel.
There are different metal recycling operations. Recycling operations like scrap yards will employ large hammer mills used in grinding scrap metal into tiny pieces for processing and separation. The large hammer mills are able to grind automobiles at once. They have the capacity to pulverize them into sizes of the fist and process many tons of scrap metal every day. The other types of hammer mills will be used to reclaim recycled asphalt, old tires and other electronic components.
The smaller mills are also sometimes used in laboratories when grinding the materials for growing experiments or media. Other small hammer mills can also be used in grinding spices or foods and food waste is often being processed with these machines. The common garbage disposal is usually a variation of a hammer mill with a dish which is equipped with a fixed teeth and grinding surfaces instead of some free swinging hammers.