Patent ID: 7156801

Claim:
A decanter centrifuge for separation of a supplied material in a light phase and a heavy phase, comprising an elongate bowl arranged for rotation about its longitudinal axis, said bowl having a separation chamber, a screw conveyor being provided in the separation chamber and being coaxial with the bowl, said screw conveyor comprising a body, which carries a screw comprising one or more flights and having a nominal transport speed varying along the longitudinal axis, an inlet with at least one inlet opening in the screw conveyor for supply of the material to the separated, and at least one discharge opening for the heavy phase in the bowl at one end of the screw conveyor, in which the screw conveyor is made to rotate relative to the bowl in view of conveying the heavy phase towards the discharge openings for the heavy phase, and in which the screw conveyor is provided with a baffle positioned between the inlet openings and the discharge openings, said baffle dividing the separation chamber in a substantially cylindrical separation part and an at least partially conical discharge part, the discharge openings for the heavy phase being positioned in the discharge part, the inlet openings being positioned at the opposite side of the baffle relative to said discharge openings, wherein immediately upstream of the baffle, seen in relation to the transport direction, a transition part is provided between the separation part and the discharge part, and the screw conveyor has a bigger nominal transport speed in the transition part than in the separation part immediately before the transition part, the change of the nominal transport speed of the screw from the nominal transport speed in the separation part immediately before the transition part to the higher nominal transport speed in the transition part being established by a change of the screw pitch.