An experimental study on a horizontal-vertical pneumatic conveying system using oscillatory flow

To reduce the power consumption of a horizontal-vertical pneumatic conveying system, an oscillator is mounted with a 45° oblique plane through the pipe axis in this study. This experimental study focuses on the effect of oscillatory flow using the oscillator on the horizontal-vertical pneumatic conveying system in terms of the overall pressure drop of the system, power consumption, local pressure drop, and particle velocity. Compared with conventional pneumatic conveying (axial-flow), the pressure drop and power consumption can be reduced using the oscillatory flow in a lower air velocity range. Meanwhile, the particle axial velocity of the oscillatory flow is higher than that of the axial-flow near the bottom of pipe. This outcome indicates that the accelerating effect of oscillatory flow is obvious near the bottom of the pipe, and the particle vertical velocity of the oscillatory flow is positive, whereas the particle vertical velocity of the axial-flow is almost negative. This result shows that the particles of the oscillatory flow are suspended sufficiently, but the particles of the axial-flow have a tendency of deposition. Furthermore, the fluctuation intensity of the particle velocity of the oscillatory flow is higher than that of the axial-flow, especially near the bottom of the pipe.     

A Unified Scaling-Up Technique for Pneumatic Conveying Systems

A major challenge facing the designers of pneumatic transportation systems is how to scale up reliably based on the results from pilot-scale test facilities. Further, even if dense phase flow condition prevails at the start of the conveying system, it may be a dilute phase flow condition at the end of the pipeline. Hence, any scaling-up technique should be able to address the dynamic change of flow condition along the pipeline. The scaling-up technique presented here using the pressure drop prediction models based on modified Darcy-Weisbach equation successfully addresses these dynamic changes. It has been shown that the pressure drop coefficient 'K,' as defined by the models, is independent of the pipe diameter. Further, in the case of vertical conveying, 'K' has been shown to be independent of particle size distribution for a given material. The predicted pressure values were found to be in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results varying from 3.5% to 19.9%.     

Simulation of Gas-Solid Flow in Vertical Pipe by Hard-Sphere Model

ABSTRACT

This article presents a two-dimensional study of the gas-solid flow in a vertical pneumatic conveying pipe by means of a hard-sphere model where the motion of individual particles can be traced. Simulations were performed for a pipe of height 0.9 m and width 0.06 m, with air as gas phase and particles of density 900 kg/m³ and diameter 0.003 m as solid phase. Periodic boundary conditions were applied to the solid phase in the axial direction. Different cases were simulated to examine the effects of the number of particles used, superficial gas velocity, and restitution coefficient. The results show that the main features of plug flow can be reasonably captured by the proposed simulation technique. That is, increasing the number of particles in a simulation will increase the length of plugs but does not change the velocity of plugs; the solid fraction of a plug is relatively low if the number of particles is small. In particular, it is shown that increasing superficial gas velocity will increase the velocity of plugs and the frequency of plugs, and the pressure drop through a rising plug increases linearly with the plug length, suggesting that the total pressure of a conveying system with a given length can be quantified from the information of plug length and plug frequency. Increasing the restitution coefficient can promote the momentum transfer between particles and hence the raining down of particles from the back of a plug in vertical pneumatic conveying. The simulation offers a useful technique to understand the fundamentals governing the gas-solid flow under pneumatic conveying conditions.     

A Unified Scaling-Up Technique for Pneumatic Conveying Systems

A major challenge facing the designers of pneumatic transportation systems is how to scale up reliably based on the results from pilot-scale test facilities. Further, even if dense phase flow condition prevails at the start of the conveying system, it may be a dilute phase flow condition at the end of the pipeline. Hence, any scaling-up technique should be able to address the dynamic change of flow condition along the pipeline. The scaling-up technique presented here using the pressure drop prediction models based on modified Darcy-Weisbach equation successfully addresses these dynamic changes. It has been shown that the pressure drop coefficient ‘K,’ as defined by the models, is independent of the pipe diameter. Further, in the case of vertical conveying, ‘K’ has been shown to be independent of particle size distribution for a given material. The predicted pressure values were found to be in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results varying from 3.5% to 19.9%.     

Simulation of Gas-Solid Flow in Vertical Pipe by Hard-Sphere Model

This article presents a two-dimensional study of the gas-solid flow in a vertical pneumatic conveying pipe by means of a hard-sphere model where the motion of individual particles can be traced. Simulations were performed for a pipe of height 0.9 m and width 0.06 m, with air as gas phase and particles of density 900 kg/m³ and diameter 0.003 m as solid phase. Periodic boundary conditions were applied to the solid phase in the axial direction. Different cases were simulated to examine the effects of the number of particles used, superficial gas velocity, and restitution coefficient. The results show that the main features of plug flow can be reasonably captured by the proposed simulation technique. That is, increasing the number of particles in a simulation will increase the length of plugs but does not change the velocity of plugs; the solid fraction of a plug is relatively low if the number of particles is small. In particular, it is shown that increasing superficial gas velocity will increase the velocity of plugs and the frequency of plugs, and the pressure drop through a rising plug increases linearly with the plug length, suggesting that the total pressure of a conveying system with a given length can be quantified from the information of plug length and plug frequency. Increasing the restitution coefficient can promote the momentum transfer between particles and hence the raining down of particles from the back of a plug in vertical pneumatic conveying. The simulation offers a useful technique to understand the fundamentals governing the gas-solid flow under pneumatic conveying conditions.     

Modeling Solids Friction for Dense-Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Powders

This article results from an ongoing investigation aimed at developing a new validated test-design procedure for the accurate prediction of pressure drop for dense-phase pneumatic conveying of powders. Models for combined pressure drop coefficient (“K”) for solids-gas mixture were derived using the concept of “suspension density” by using the steady-state “straight pipe” pressure drop data between two different tapping locations of the same pipe and also for two different diameter pipes. It was observed that the derived models were different depending on the location of tapping points (for the same pipe) and selected pipe diameters. The derived models were then evaluated by predicting the pressure drop for pipelines with various diameters or lengths (69 mm I.D. × 168 m, 105 mm I.D. × 168 m, 69 mm I.D. × 554 m) for the conveying of power station fly ash. A comparison between the predicted pneumatic conveying characteristics (PCC) and the experimental plots showed that the models resulted in significant over-predictions. In the second part of the article, the “system” approach of scaleup was evaluated. “Total” pipeline pressure drop characteristics for test-rig pipelines were scaled up to predict the PCC for larger/longer pipes. It was found that the “system” approach generally resulted in grossly inaccurate predictions. It was concluded that further studies are needed for a better understanding of the solids-gas flow mechanism under dense-phase conditions.     

The effect of oscillating flow on a horizontal dilute-phase pneumatic conveying

ABSTRACT

A horizontal dilute-phase pneumatic conveying system using vertically oscillating soft fins at the inlet of the gas–particle mixture was studied to reduce the power consumption and conveying velocity in the conveying process. The effect of different fin lengths on horizontal pneumatic conveying was studied in terms of the pressure drop, conveying velocity, power consumption, particle velocity, and intensity of particle fluctuation velocity for the case of a low solid mass flow rate. The conveying pipeline consisted of a horizontal smooth acrylic tube with an inner diameter of 80 mm and a length of approximately 5 m. Two types of polyethylene particles with diameters of 2.3 and 3.3 mm were used as conveying materials. The superficial air velocity was varied from 10 to 17 m/s, and the solid mass flow rates were 0.25 and 0.20 kg/s. Compared with conventional pneumatic conveying, the pressure drop, MPD (minimum pressure drop), critical velocities, and power consumption can be reduced by using soft fins in a lower air velocity range, and the efficiency of fins becomes more evident when increasing the length of fins or touching particles stream by the long fins. The maximum reduction rates of the MPD velocity and power consumption when using soft fins are approximately 15% and 26%, respectively. The magnitude of the vertical particle velocity for different lengths of fins is clearly lower than that of the vertical particle velocity for a non-fin conveying system near the bottom of the pipeline, indicating that the particles are easily suspended. The intensities of particle fluctuation velocity of using fins are larger than that of non-fin. The high particle fluctuation energy implies that particles are easily suspended and are easily conveyed and accelerated.     

Modeling Dense-Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Powders Using Suspension Density

This article presents results of an investigation into the modeling of pressure drop in horizontal straight pipe section for fluidized dense-phase pneumatic conveying of powders. Suspension density and superficial air velocity have been used to model pressure drop for two-phase solids-gas flow. Two applicable models formats (developed by other researchers using two different definitions of suspension density) were used to represent the pressure drop due to solids-gas flow through straight pipe sections. Models were generated based on the test data of conveying power-station fly ash and electrostatic precipitator (ESP) dust (median particle diameter: 30 and 7 µm; particle density: 2300 and 3637 kg m^?3; loose-poured bulk density: 700 and 610 kg m^?3, respectively) through a relatively short length of a smaller diameter pipeline. The developed models were evaluated for their scale-up accuracy and stability by using them to predict the total pipeline pressure drop (with appropriate bend model) for 69 mm I.D. × 168 m; 105 mm I.D. × 168 m and 69 mm I.D. × 554 m pipes and comparing the predicted versus with experimental data. Results show that both the models with suspension density and air velocity generally provide relatively better prediction compared to the conventional use of solids loading ratio and Froude number. For fly ash, the two formats result in considerable different predictions, whereas they provide relatively similar results for ESP dust.     

A NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF SWIRLING FLOW PNEUMATIC CONVEYING IN A HORIZONTAL PIPELINE

A numerical simulation for swirling and axial flow pneumatic conveying in a horizontal pipe was carried out with a Eulerian approach for the gas phase and a stochastic Lagrangian approach for particle phase, where particle-particle and particle-wall collisions were taken into consideration. The k-ε turbulence model is used to characterize the time and length scales of the gas-phase turbulence. Models are proposed for predicting the particle source and additional pressure loss. The numerical results are presented for polyethylene pellets of 3.1 mm diameter conveyed through a pipeline of 13 m in length with an inner diameter of 80 mm, solid mass flow rate was 0.084 kg/s, and gas velocity was varied from 10 m/s to 18 m/s. The particle flow patterns, the particle concentration and the particle velocity, and additional pressure loss were obtained. It is found that the particle velocity and concentration has almost same value along flow direction in swirling flow pneumatic conveying. The profile of particle concentration for swirling flow pneumatic conveying exhibits symmetric distribution towards the centerline and the higher particle concentration appears in neighbor of wall in the acceleration region. At downstream, the uniform profile of particle concentration is observed. The particle velocity profile, on the other hand, is uniform for both swirling and axial flow pneumatic conveying. A comparison of the calculations with the measured data shows a good agreement within an average error of less than 15 percent.     

A NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF SWIRLING FLOW PNEUMATIC CONVEYING IN A HORIZONTAL PIPELINE

ABSTRACT

A numerical simulation for swirling and axial flow pneumatic conveying in a horizontal pipe was carried out with a Eulerian approach for the gas phase and a stochastic Lagrangian approach for particle phase, where particle-particle and particle-wall collisions were taken into consideration. The k-? turbulence model is used to characterize the time and length scales of the gas-phase turbulence. Models are proposed for predicting the particle source and additional pressure loss. The numerical results are presented for polyethylene pellets of 3.1 mm diameter conveyed through a pipeline of 13 m in length with an inner diameter of 80 mm, solid mass flow rate was 0.084 kg/s, and gas velocity was varied from 10 m/s to 18 m/s. The particle flow patterns, the particle concentration and the particle velocity, and additional pressure loss were obtained. It is found that the particle velocity and concentration has almost same value along flow direction in swirling flow pneumatic conveying. The profile of particle concentration for swirling flow pneumatic conveying exhibits symmetric distribution towards the centerline and the higher particle concentration appears in neighbor of wall in the acceleration region. At downstream, the uniform profile of particle concentration is observed. The particle velocity profile, on the other hand, is uniform for both swirling and axial flow pneumatic conveying. A comparison of the calculations with the measured data shows a good agreement within an average error of less than 15 percent.     

Analysis of Gas-Solids Feeding and Slug Formation in Low-Velocity Pneumatic Conveying

Gas and solids feeding is a key operation in pneumatic conveying of particulate materials. This article presents an analysis of the interfacing effects between a nozzle gas supplier, a rotary valve solids feeder with dropout box, and the pipeline of a pneumatic conveying test rig for low-velocity dense-phase flow. Experiments were carried out to examine the flow pattern of slugs in different combinations of gas flow conditions and solids loading ratios. The effect of gas and solids feeding on the formation of slugs is analyzed by using both experimental data and computer-modeled results. Solids accumulation and sliding motion at the bottom of the dropout box and near the entrance of the downstream pipe, which happen prior to the bulk motion in the form of a slug, are found important in determining the size of a slug. Gas retention and pressure buildup characteristics in the feed section are also found crucial in influencing the flow patterns of slugs.     

A Simple Technique for Scaling Up Pneumatic Conveying Systems

A brief survey has shown that although scaling-up techniques in pneumatic conveying systems have generally been based on laboratory-scale test data, there still exists a divergence of opinions about the right choice of certain basic parameters such as solids friction factor and air friction factor. In this article, a simple model for pressure drop calculation has been proposed based on the classical Darcy's equation with some modifications. A parameter K, called pressure drop coefficient, has been shown to be independent of pipe diameter and hence suitable for scaling up to pipe sizes different from those used in laboratory-scale tests. For each of the bulk material and pipe size combinations used in this study, we calculated the standard deviation of predicted pressure values from the experimental values along the central 45° line passing through the origin; it varied from±165 mbar to a maximum±285 mbar. It has been shown that the model can be used for both horizontal and vertical pneumatic conveying.     

A Simple Technique for Scaling Up Pneumatic Conveying Systems

A brief survey has shown that although scaling-up techniques in pneumatic conveying systems have generally been based on laboratory-scale test data, there still exists a divergence of opinions about the right choice of certain basic parameters such as solids friction factor and air friction factor. In this article, a simple model for pressure drop calculation has been proposed based on the classical Darcy's equation with some modifications. A parameter K, called pressure drop coefficient, has been shown to be independent of pipe diameter and hence suitable for scaling up to pipe sizes different from those used in laboratory-scale tests. For each of the bulk material and pipe size combinations used in this study, we calculated the standard deviation of predicted pressure values from the experimental values along the central 45° line passing through the origin; it varied from±165 mbar to a maximum±285 mbar. It has been shown that the model can be used for both horizontal and vertical pneumatic conveying.     

Computational model for prediction of particle degradation during dilute-phase pneumatic conveying: modeling of dilute-phase pneumatic conveying

A complete model of particle impact degradation during dilute-phase pneumatic conveying is developed, which combines a degradation model, based on the experimental determination of breakage matrices, and a physical model of solids and gas flow in the pipeline. The solids flow in a straight pipe element is represented by a model consisting of two zones: a strand-type flow zone immediately downstream of a bend, followed by a fully suspended flow region after dispersion of the strand. The breakage matrices constructed from data on 90° angle single-impact tests are shown to give a good representation of the degradation occurring in a pipe bend of 90° angle. Numerical results are presented for degradation of granulated sugar in a large scale pneumatic conveyor.     

Horizontal pneumatic conveying: a 3d distinct element model

Pneumatic conveying is widely used for transporting bulk solids in chemical, process and agricultural industries. It is environmentally friendly, flexible and can be fully automated. But it can also involve high power consumption, wear, abrasion, blockage and particle degradation. Hence understanding the physics can help to optimise design and operation. Conveying in a horizontal pipe involves complex multiphase flows, potentially with lean and dense phase regions, stationary particles and blockage.The Distinct Element Method (DEM) is a powerful tool to study granular dynamics. It models interactions at the particle level and reproduces the assembly physics. This paper presents a 3D DEM model to predict pressure drop, flowrate and flow patterns in pneumatic conveying. The inter-particle forces are modelled using the spring-dashpot-slider analogy. A novel gas flow model is developed. The pipe is divided into sections. In each section a lean and dense region is determined on a voidage criterion based on particle positions. Given the pressure at the boundaries, the fluid flow is determined assuming steady state conditions. This uses the Ergun equation for the flow through the dense phase and the equations of Wen and Yu for modified single spheres and wall resistance for the lean phase. It uses an iterative algorithm adjusting the fluid flowrate so that the pressure in each section is the same in the dense phase and lean phase and maintaining the boundary pressures. Once the fluid flow profile has been calculated the fluid drag on each particle can be determined. The results compare well with experimental data relating pressure gradient and solid and gas flowrates from Molerus (1993), Molerus (1996). Flow patterns for all the flow regimes, fully suspended flow, strand flow, slug flow, and conveying over stationary layer are observed.     

A Numerical Simulation of Swirling Flow Pneumatic Conveying in a Vertical Pipeline

A numerical prediction for the axial and swirling pneumatic conveying in a vertical pipe was performed based on an Eulerian approach for the gas and a stochastic Lagrangian approach for the particles, where κ – ? turbulence model, the model of particle-particle and particle-wall collisions, was adopted. The numerical results are presented for polyethylene pellets of 3.2mm diameter conveyed through a pipeline of 12m in height with an inner diameter of 80mm. The initial swirl number was 0.0 and 0.68, the mean gas velocity varied from 11 to 17m/s, and the solid mass flow rate was 0.03 and 0.084 kg/s. From the numerical analysis, the swirl decay of the swirling gas-solid flow was found to be rapid in the acceleration region and approached the clean swirling flow in a fully developed region. The turbulent kinetic energy and energy dissipation rates of the swirling gas-solid flow increased near the wall and reduced in other regions. The comparison of predicted values with measured data showed a good agreement.     

CHARACTERISTICS OF A HORIZONTAL SWIRLING FLOW PNEUMATIC CONVEYING WITH A CURVED PIPE

In order to prevent flow blockage phenomenon and to reduce the impact of particles on the wall of the bend, an experimental study of the swirling flow pneumatic conveying system with a horizontal curved pipe was carried out in this work. The experiment was performed in a 90-deg pipe bend with pipe diameter 75 mm and centerline curvature ratio 12. The straight pipes with 75 mm inside diameter at the upstream and downstream of the bend were 1.3 m and 4.0 m in lengths, respectively. The initial swirl number was varied from 0.22 to 0.60, the mean air velocity from 10 to 20 m/s, and the solid mass flow rate from 0.07 to 0.68 kg/s. It is found that in the lower air velocity range, the overall pressure drop of the swirling flow pneumatic conveying shows a lower tendency than that of axial flow pneumatic conveying. The minimum air velocities can be decreased by using the swirling flow pneumatic conveying. From the visualization of particle flow patterns, the impact of particles on the wall of the bend can be reduced using the swirling flow.     

Analytical prediction of pressure loss through a sudden-expansion in two-phase pneumatic conveying lines

Estimation of separation or minor pressure losses for pipe fittings of a pneumatic conveying system at design stage is critical as much as determination of frictional pressure losses through it. The flow in many pneumatic conveying systems is a two-phase flow; it is so complex and difficult to be investigated by experimental techniques. The static pressure recovery and the minor loss coefficient through an axis-symmetric, circular cross-section, sudden-expansion fitting of a horizontal pneumatic conveying line with air–solid particle flow are analytically studied. The theoretical models proposed in the literature are scarce, and do not confirm the experimental studies. The well-known homogeneous and separated flow models proposed in the literature are initially applied to the case by means of mass and momentum conservation laws. The predictions of both the models on the pressure recovery were compared with the experimental and the numerical data in the literature and a bad agreement was observed between them; therefore, a new original analytical model is proposed by the present study. The new model is called as the slip flow model, which takes into account the slip velocity between gas and solid phases evaluated by coupling the well-known separated flow model with the empirical slip ratio predictions in the literature. The predictions of the proposed slip flow model on both the pressure recovery and minor loss coefficient are found in good agreement with the corresponding data in the literature.     

A Possible Scaling-up Technique for Dense Phase Pneumatic Conveying

In this article experimental findings have been presented to show that the pressure drop coefficient (K) for vertical and horizontal pneumatic conveying for a given bulk material follows a certain pattern. The pressure drop coefficient for vertical pneumatic conveying for a given material has been found to be independent of any variation of particle size distribution, within experimental limits. The pressure drop prediction technique proposed by the authors previously has been validated with the test results of alumina and bentonite.     

粒子群算法在气力输送管道压降预测中的应用

管道压降是气力输送系统设计的一个重要参数,传统的求解方法比较复杂.本文提出了以气体流速、颗粒浓度、混合比等作为神经网络输入,建立管道压降网络模型的方法.为进一步提高管道压降预测准确度,以预测误差作为适应度值,采用粒子群算法对网络权值和阈值寻优,优化神经网络,并利用样本数据训练出了有效的压降预测网络.通过将预测数据和粉料气力输送实验装置的实测数据相比较,结果表明,该方法预测误差小,准确度高,有较高的实用价值.