Parameters affecting power consumption in pneumatic conveying of fine particles

Pneumatic conveying of certain bulk materials is widely used in industries due to certain advantages over other modes of conveying. As compared to dilute phase, dense phase conveying is a preferred method of conveying due to its low power consumption, low erosive wear and low attrition of particles. Fly ash and alumina being high aeration capable due to their fine particle size tend to be conveyed in fluidised dense mode at low velocities. In this paper, details of pneumatic conveying tests are presented which are carried out using fly ash and alumina as conveying material at different solids loading ratios for dense mode as well as dilute mode of flow. Power consumption is the major parameter of analysis of any pneumatic conveying system. In this paper different parameters affecting power consumption are studied. These important parameters are considered to find a correlation with non-dimensional power. The correlation is found to be in good agreement with experimental data. From the experimental data the optimal value of specific power consumption and non-dimensional power are calculated. Also fluidized dense phase conveying through long distances is quite complex due to change of flow mode during the process of conveying at some location along the pipeline. It is quite difficult to locate the exact location of transition of flow mode from dense to dilute. For the purpose of analysis, pressure data of three 2 metre sections of pipeline at different locations along pipeline are considered. So in this paper the variations of a non-dimensional power or power consumption coefficient and transient parameter pulse amplitude at three different locations along the length of pipeline are analysed