Design and Development of a Packed-bed Continuous Pneumatic Conveyor

✍ Scribed by M.H. Raoufat; B. Clarke

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 285 KB
• Volume: 71
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8634
• DOI: 10.1006/jaer.1998.0335

✦ Synopsis

A new approach to dense-phase pneumatic conveying of grain is presented. Grain is conveyed in a fully packed bed at high pressure through a 100 mm bore plastic pipe system which was scaled up from a previously tested 38)5 mm bore model prototype system. Features of the conveyor include an open-top feeder hopper, a solids injector, a high working pressure, a discharge control valve, a high-pressure rotary valve and flow instrumentation. A characteristic dimensionless equation derived from the model was tested as a means of predicting the performance of the larger conveyor but it indicated that a significantly higher pressure drop and hence power would be needed than was actually required. The energy consumption was found to be similar to that required for conventional dilute systems, as found on many farms, although other advantages of the dense-phase system were apparent, such as good flow control, low noise and low dust.