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An auger is a device for moving material or liquid (see Archimedes' screw) by means of a rotating helical flighting. The material is moved along the axis of rotation. For some uses the helical 'flighting' is enclosed in a tube, for other uses the flighting is not encased. An Early type of drill bit, used by carpenters, uses this mechanism to remove shavings from the hole being drilled.

Hole auger[]

Main article: Auger drill
Auger attachment on New Holland excavator - IMG 8277

A long auger drill attachment mounted on a excavator and driven by a hydraulic service

An auger may also be used in agriculture or animal farming for digging post holes. Such an auger is called an earth auger. This kind of auger can be a manually turned, handheld device, or powered by an electric motor or internal-combustion engine, possibly attached to a tractor (being provided with power by the tractor engine's power take-off as shown)

Piling auger[]

Main article: piling rig
Junttan piling rig (secant) DSCF0009a

Junttan Pile boring rig

In construction, auger screws are used for special drilling rigs to dig holes for deep foundation piles. These can be upwards of 15m long and up to an massive 2.5 m diameter. Special exspanding cutter heads cut Under-reamed piles up to 5m diameter at the bottom of the shaft drilled with a straight auger to widen the base, thus creating an under-reamed pile. They can drill deeper holes by adding extension rods on called a kelly bar.

Grain auger[]

Auger for Bulk loading - IMG 6182

Portable grain auger loading a bulk trailer

The grain auger is used in agriculture to move grain from trucks and grain carts into grain storage bins (from where it is later removed by gravity chutes at the bottom). A grain auger may be powered by an electric motor; a tractor, through the power take-off; or sometimes an internal combustion engine mounted on the auger. The helical flighting rotates inside a long metal tube, moving the grain upwards. On the lower end, a hopper receives grain from the truck or grain cart. A chute on the upper end guides the grain into the destination location.

origin[]

The modern grain auger of today's farming communities was invented by Peter Pakosh. His grain mover employed a screw-type auger with a minimum of moving parts, a totally new application for this specific use. At Massey Harris (later Massey Ferguson), young Pakosh approached the design department in the 1940s with his auger idea, but was scolded and told that his idea was unimaginable and that once the auger aged and bent that the metal on metal would, according to a head Massey designer, "start fires all across Canada".[citation needed] Pakosh, however, went on to design and build a first prototype auger in 1945, and 8 years later start selling tens of thousands under the 'Versatile' name, making it the standard for modern grain augers

Other applications[]

Hand augers at Wortley Top Forge 2010 - IMG 0097

Collection of Hand Auger bits and other tools

Various other applications of the auger include its use in:

  • Snowblowers, to move snow towards an impeller, where it is thrown into the discharge chute.
  • Combine harvesters use both enclosed and open augers to move the unthreshed crop into the threshing mechanism and to move the grain into and out of the machine's hopper. *Ice resurfacers use augers to remove loose ice particles from the surface of the ice. *Plumbers use a plumber's snake, a flexible auger, to remove obstructions from pipes. *Handheld augers can also be used for garden planting.
  • Post augers driven by a modified chainsaw engine are use to bore holes for fence posts, and for Ice fishing holes in Alaska, Greenland and other areas with frozen seas and lakes
  • Auger bits used by joiners and carpenters to bore holes in wood.
Main article: Auger (hand tool)

See also[]


Smallwikipedialogo This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Auger. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Tractor & Construction Plant Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons by Attribution License and/or GNU Free Documentation License. Please check page history for when the original article was copied to Wikia


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