Calculating Torque for an Auger-Powered Ball Pushing Application

[ZIG]

I am developing an application with an auger (a type of drill bit ) in which this auger will be pushing balls up a tube. The weight of the balls equals about .5 lbs but I would like to have 2.5lbs of pressure applied to them. The auger will be powered by a DC motor and I need to figure out the torque rating needed for this motor to push this kind of weight in inch pounds. The motor needs to spin at 1500-1800 RPM if that is helpful. Does anyone have a formula or formulas for calculating something like this? Attached is a basic drawing of the auger specs and what it looks like. If the image does not show, it is located at www.develonet.com/auger1.GIF[/URL]
Please detail your formula if you have one.
Thanks a ton!

 

[chroot]

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[Achy47]

Depending on the size of the spheres in relation to the passageways within the auger bit this, might get complicated, or not. You might want to read into spherical packing. However, I'm not sure whether the geometry of your problem lends itself well to analysis this way. I'm thinking that this will be the toughest aspect of your problem. If you determined the most likely natural packing arrangement you would be off to a good start, but not out of the woods. I would imagine that (again depending on the size if the spheres) the forces affecting friction in this problem would be pretty scarry to calculate.