Research on wet-type swirl dust collection technology and its application in underground excavation tunnels

Wet-type dust collectors are widely used in underground excavation tunnels to control dust pollution. Nozzles and filter screens easily blocked by deposited scale and sticky dust, however, are usually a challenging problem for traditional wet-type dust collectors. This increases the cleaning workload and reduces the service life of the equipment. To address this issue, a wet-type swirl dust collection method without using spray nozzles and filter screens is proposed, and a novel wet-type swirl dust collector is designed. Experiments and field application of the wet-type swirl dust collector were carried out. Experimental results showed that the optimum water intake of the dust collector was 1.0 m³/h at 1480 r/min^?1 impeller speed; the dust suppression efficiency of the dust with particles size less than 75 μm was 93%, and that of dust with particles size of 180–250 μm was 95.2%. The field application in China's Tongqing Mine indicated that the respirable dust at the roadheader driver was reduced to 6.9 mg/m³, with a dust removal rate of 92.0%. The wet-type swirl dust collector effectively improves the dust collection efficiency and makes up for the problem of nozzles and filter screens being easily blocked in underground excavation tunnels by the traditional methods.