On Improving Scale-Up Procedures for Dense-Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Powders

This article presents results of an ongoing effort toward improving the modeling and scale-up procedures for the dense-phase pneumatic conveying of fine powders through pipes. Two new approaches are employed in this study. One approach, derived by modifying an existing reliable dilute-phase model to make it suitable for the dense-phase, has resulted in relatively stable predictions for diameter and length scale-up for two types of fly ash, ESP dust, pulverized brown coal and fly ash/cement mixture. Although some over-predictions still remain for the cases of diameter scale-up, there seems to be a substantial relative improvement in the overall accuracy of predictions (compared to the existing design methods). Another method has been derived using the concept of “two-layer” slurry flow modeling (suspension flow occurring on top of a non-suspension moving layer), and this has also resulted in similar improvements. Although the “two-layer” technique is believed to be more representative of the actual flow conditions under dense-phase conveying, the simpler “modified” method appears to be adequate for practical design purposes.